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Class _HJ-Il_ 



Book. 



41 



Copyright N°_ 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 



SIDE LIGHTS 
ON THE WAR 

For 
Upper Grades and High Schools 



BY 

WILLIAM L. NIDA 

Superintendent of Schools, River Forest, Illinois 

Author of 

"Dawn of American History," "City, State and Nation," 

"Story of the World War for Young People," Etc. 



HALE BOOK CO. 

OAK PARK, ILLINOIS 



h 






COPYRIGHT. 1918 

BY WILLIAM L. NIDA 

PUBLISHED. SEPTEMBER, 1918 



0^° 

NOV -7 1918 

©CU5U6528 



CONTENTS 
Part I 

CHAPTER PAGE 

1. The Making of an Aviator 5 

2. The Aviator Over the Firing Line 10 

3. Chasing a German Flyer 15 

4. Our First Air Victory 18 

5. Defeating the Submarine 22 

6. The Story of Two U-Boats 27 

7. A British Captive on a German "Sub". ... 31 

8. Naval Defeat in the Dardanelles 35 

9. Camouflage on Land and Sea 40 

10. Fighting With Poison Gas 45 

11. How Chemists Aid the Fighters 52 

12. American Troops in London 57 

13. The Work of the Bed Cross 62 

14. From an Ambulance Driver 69 

Part II — Geography of the War 

15. The Story of Alsace-Lorraine 73 

16. The Scheme of the Bagdad Railway 83 

17. Britain and the Mediterranean 94 

18. Germany's Advantages in the War 102 

19. The World's Coal and the War Ill 

20. Germany's Copper Famine 120 

21. Platinum and the War 129 

22. Nitrogen for Fertilizer and Munitions 133 

23. America's Potash Famine 137 

24. Sulphur in War Times 147 

25. Europe, Its Climate and Waterways 153 



FOREWORD 

It is dawning upon all school authorities, and 
especially upon those who make the courses of study, 
that since this "World War stands mountain high 
above all other events of history it must have a 
large and growing place in the school program. 

The problems of today and the magnificent way 
in which they are being solved constitute the most 
vital and stimulating material that can be put in 
the hands of teachers and pupils. 

The school boys of today are the men of tomorrow 
who must face the questions of the reconstruction 
period. Let us spend a little less time with Caesar 
and Napoleon and a little more with the great 
leaders of today with their triumphs and problems. 

The object of this book is to make many of these 
present questions clear and put them into convenient 
form for discussion in the class room. 

W. L. N. 



Part I 

CHAPTER I 
THE MAKING OF AN AVIATOR 

In the early days of the war American boys hur- 
ried to Europe to be trained in the art of flying by 
the French, British and Italian aviators. But now 
Uncle Sam is training his men to fly at home. Our 
great camps for the making of airmen were soon in 
working order. From the beginning of the war, a 
large number of men offered themselves for the 
aviation branch of the service. They were eager to 
try its new experience and its risks. In fact, so 
many applied for air service that a large number 
had to be rejected. 

Our government has severe tests for an airman. 
He must pass a thorough physical and mental exam- 
WA^S-ira ination - College men are preferred, 
hard tests because flyers must have at least a 
slight knowledge of many of the sciences. The heart 
and lungs of the flyer must be perfect, for he must 
endure high altitudes. His eyes, too, must be with- 
out flaw, for he must scan the horizon for miles. He 
must be^ able to look through the fogs and observe 
the details of the land that the enemy occupies. His 
body, too, must be strong and supple, with no weak 
spots that might give way under strain. His mind 
and muscles must act together with lightning quick- 
ness, because there are many times when his life 
may depend upon the right use of a hundredth part 
of a second. The airman must know how to give 
himself to team work in the skies. He must have 
courage, for there are deadly perils ahead; but, 



6 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

above everything else, he must have good judgment 
and a good working mind. If he errs in a report to 
his base, the result may be the destruction of thou- 
sands of men or the loss of a battle. 

There are several steps in the making of an air- 
man. The first step is taken in a "ground school." 
Most of these are in American universities. The sec- 
ond step is at one of the great flying schools of the 
government, and the third step is in France, just 
behind the fighting lines. 

An aviation cadet must attend the ground school 
for eight weeks and pass a stiff mental test. No lad 
the ground without a good head gets through. 
school Here he learns about engines. He 

studies every part of his machine right side up and 
upside down. He knows when it is in disorder and 
needs repair and how to repair it while coasting 
down the wind over the enemy country. He must 
know all about the stress on the wings and the 
arrangement of wires and braces to make his air- 
plane strong. Some day he may have to dive 
straight down for a mile at an enemy's balloon. 
When he suddenly checks his wild fall he must know 
how to do it without snapping the cables and the 
binding wires of his machine. He must know, too, 
about different types of machines and for what each 
is intended. 

There is the Morse telegraphic code, which he 
must know well and must practice every day for 
weeks. He must know the code so well that he can 
translate it at the moment he gets it without even 
writing it down. With it comes the science of teleg- 
raphy and wireless. Among all these difficult tests 
many a lad has been lost to the game of flying. 

The aviator also must know much about the stars, 
so that he can direct his course by them at night. 
He must have a knowledge of the winds and how 
they behave. For instance, if he should be traveling 



THE MAKING OF AN AVIATOR 7 

at fifty miles an hour across a wind that blows fifty 
miles an hour to his right and he should turn to the 
right he must know that he would fall to the ground 
like a plummet. In such a case the wind would be 
going the same direction, and just as fast as his 
machine, and there would be nothing to hold his 
machine up, because it is kept up always by the 
motor pressing on the air. 

The young airman must also understand how to 
use a camera, how to take photographs over the line 
photography and to record the positions of the 
from the sky e nemy. By comparing these photo- 
graphs each day, he can see what changes are being 
made and what the enemy is doing, for should he 
attempt to camouflage, or to conceal or disguise his 
movements, the camera must reveal his plans. 

Sometimes an airman is sent up for a snap shot 
which must be gotten quickly. He passes through a 
storm of shrapnel, gets his picture and returns and 
has it developed by the speediest method known to 
science, and within half an hour it is in the hands 
of the officers who are directing the troops and those 
who are operating the big guns. 

At the ground schools there are wonderful relief 
maps which show the landscapes as they appear from 
correcting the sky. One of these may occupy the 

THE RANGE fl oor Q f the clasg room> T wenty fegt 

above this floor is a balcony from which the students 
look down, just as a flyer would look down from the 
air. These relief maps are very clever devices. 
They represent battle fields with trenches and pill 
boxes with gun positions. They are electrically 
wired so that shell bursts may be shown. The 
instructor, by pressing a button, may have the shell 
burst wherever he likes, as it might do upon a 
real battle field. The cadet in the balcony above is 
the spotter who corrects the range for that battery. 
He observes the flash of the shell with relation to 



8 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

the target. Then he telegraphs back how to change 
the range so as to hit the target, and he must tele- 
graph with the Morse code. Thus the student 
aviator is actually doing in his class room just what 
he would have to do when he is alone in the skies as 
a flyer for Uncle Sam. 

The cadet must also be familiar with the machine 
gun. He must know it as well as he does the bean- 
machine-gun shooter of his boyhood ; he must learn 
expert to take it apart and put it together; 

he must be able to put cartridges into it with his left 
hand while his right hand directs his machine, for 
you know he must maneuver his machine, operate his 
gun, take pictures, use his wireless and do many 
things at once when flying. Thus you can see he is 
a busy student during his eight weeks in the ground 
school. 

Now he is ready for the government's Aviation 
Field and eager to make practice flights. There are 
a number of government Aviation Fields scattered 
over the country. Several of them are in Texas and 
other southern states where outdoor conditions are 
fine the year round. 

When a cadet first ascends into the air, he goes 
in a two-seater with an instructor. After watching 
trial his instructor for a time, he takes over the 
flights control of the airplane and has the instruc- 
tor correct any mistakes he may make. Presently 
the learner is running the machine alone. At first 
the flights are short and there are many landings; 
then the day soon comes when the cadet goes aloft 
while his instructor watches him from the ground 
and corrects afterwards any mistakes he has made. 
Presently he is ready for his final test. He must fly 
thirty or forty miles to another station, make a land- 
ing, register, and fly back. On another day he must 
go aloft to an altitude of 10,000 feet, where he will 
feel the difference in the resistance of rarefied air, 



THE MAKING OF AN AVIATOR 9 

and where it is as hard to climb a hundred feet as it 
is to mount a thousand feet lower down. Perhaps 
he will fly for the first time over a great white cloud 
and behold many beautiful sights and have many 
thrilling experiences. 

Four months of training is expected to show the 
qualities that are needed for an airman. Then the 
air cadet is ready for his third stage of training. 
He is made a second lieutenant and becomes a re- 
serve military aviator. His cadet days are passed 
and he is an officer in the United States Army. 

Then the flyer is off for the front in France, where 
he gets into the game behind the fighting line in the 
off for atmosphere of the battle. There he gets the 
France discipline of the team work and tests his 
mettle with the battle plane. More and more the 
battle planes are fighting in squadrons rather than 
singly. The single fighter is still seen* at times, but 
he is often outnumbered by a squadron of the enemy. 

The aviators in France have a few slang expres- 
sions that are telling. They call the airplane a 
"can" probably because of the large gasoline tank. 
"Going to a pink tea" is going up in the air after a 
German. A "cuckoo" is an aviator who has all his 
battles when there is no one to look on and then 
comes back and tells about it. "Cuckoo birds" are 
always telling about "pink teas," though they never 
have any. 

"When an aviator "spots" an enemy he "jockeys" 
for position. That is, he gets in a position where he 
can shoot the enemy and the enemy cannot shoot 
him. Usually he tries to ' ' get under his tail, ' ' which 
is behind and under him. 

When a flyer is at a disadvantage he "zooms" 
or "dives" or "vrilles" home. If he "zooms" he 
steers straight home, if he " dives ' ' he goes straight 
groundward, while if he "vrilles" he dives, turn- 
ing around like a top so it is difficult to hit him. 



CHAPTER II 
THE AVIATOR OVER THE FIRING LINES* 

Airplanes are the eyes of the gun. Every officer 
must know exactly how much of the enemy can be 
use of seen from the air and at certain heights 
balloons how much the enemy flyers can see his 
forces. The long distance gunner cannot see his 
target. Often the commander cannot see his own 
gun because he is far away in an observation post, 
noting where the shells fall. He gives his commands 
by telephone. If there is no high position from 
which the commander can watch the effect of his fire 
direct, then he will send up a captive balloon, that is, 
a balloon held by a wire from the ground. This is 
sent up far behind the lines, so high that it is out of 
the enemy's range. Below the balloon is a big basket 
filled with observers, who are watching where the 
shells are falling. All the while the enemy is puffing 
away at this gas bag with incendiary shells. If the 
bag catches fire the observers tumble out with their 
parachutes and descend safely. 

Sometimes the enemy's battery is so placed that 
the balloon observer cannot locate it ; then they use 
aiming by an airplane, which rises higher than the 
airplane balloon and sails over the enemy's line 
to get the desired information. In the case of the 
balloon there are wires running up to it and the 
gunner talks back and forth from the ground as from 
one office to another, but you cannot connect wires 
with an airplane. The flyer carries a wireless and 
can send messages to the ground where an operator 
receives them, but the aviator cannot easily receive 

•See my World War, Chapter b. 

10 



THE AVIATOE OVER THE FIRING LINES 11 

messages by wireless, though this is sometimes 
attempted. If you were sitting right beside him you 
could not talk into his ear with a megaphone and 
make him hear. It is a terrible deafening noise that 
is made by a motor two thousand feet up in the air, 
running at the rate of 100 miles an hour. 

Yet, if he cannot hear, the flyer can see. So they 
signal to him from the ground with large white signs 
ground arranged to spell out the words for him. 
signals These white signs lie flat on the ground. 
They are seen clearly and easily against the green 
grass by the man up in the plane. By different 
arrangements of these signs signals are given to the 
aviator. Perhaps they tell him to go north and 
locate a German battery. 

In order to observe and photograph enemy coun- 
try or bomb their works it is necessary to go in 
formation, a squadron with several machines acting 
as scouts and protection for the bombing or the 
observation work near the ground. They must go 
forward in sufficient numbers to sweep the skies. 

The formation of the squadron is interesting. 
They go up in what might be called terraces. The 
flying in first terrace is perhaps four miles high. 
terraces It is made up of the single-seated fighting 
machines with a speed of 150 miles an hour and the 
two-seaters with a speed of 110 miles an hour. These 
are the challengers of all comers and they fight any 
enemy who may appear. From the advantage of 
their high position they are ready to swoop down 
on any enemy plane below and drive him to the 
ground. These machines which are flying so high 
are the protectors of the other machines at lower 
levels. 

Two miles up there is another terrace of 
machines which are also fighters. Their duty is to 
float nearer to the observing machine and to come 
to grips with any enemy who appears on that level. 



12 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

These are fast machines also, given to much circling 
about, that they may not outrun the slower machines 
below them. 

At the height of a mile are the observing machines 
that " drag along" at perhaps eighty miles an hour. 
Their object is to find out what is happening on the 
ground below and to radio it to headquarters. If a 
big drive is on they must hold their position and spot 
the shots of their battery. The high flyers above 
must remain in position to protect them and keep 
the skies swept clear. 

Still farther below, at a height of 1,000 feet, are 
the combat planes, which are different from the 
others. They attack the enemy of the ground. Car- 
rying bombs in great number, they swoop down and 
scatter them among their foes. They also rake the 
enemy trenches with their machine guns and attack 
the advancing reinforcements, the line of transpor- 
tation and the munition bases. They even deliver 
shells to men who are hard to reach, by releasing 
them in a parachute. They are a new force in actual 
fighting and are playing great havoc behind the 
enemy lines. 

Bomb dropping is used more and more as the air- 
plane is being perfected and put to much greater 
bombing from use. The Germans denounce this 
the sky practice of the Allied aviators as 

"baby killing" as hotly as England denounces the 
German slaughter of defenseless women and chil- 
dren. But the Germans first broke the laws of war 
by bombing unfortified towns, and even gloried in 
it. Bombing is becoming more and more accur- 
ate, although the "misses" still far outnumber the 
"hits." 

One might think that it would be easy to wipe out 
a fort, to demolish a bridge, or blow up a battleship 
by dropping on it a hundred pounds of high explo- 
sive from an airplane. But one must remember that 



THE AVIATOR OVER THE FIRING LINES 13 

the airplane is moving, perhaps a hundred miles an 
hour. From such a moving object it is difficult to 
hit a target. The fast-moving airplane, when releas- 
ing a bomb, gives it a forward motion. Then, too, 
the winds may deflect the bomb before it reaches the 
earth. 

To hit a target from the air the flyer must know 
his height as well as his speed with almost impos- 
sible accuracy. If he hesitates even a few seconds 
in releasing the bomb it is carried beyond the target. 
A hunter in hitting flying game must aim ahead of 
his target. The difficulty is the same whether the 
target or the gun is moving. Aiming ahead causes 
all the trouble. 

The resistance of air currents has a strong power 
on objects falling from a height. Then, too, the 
streamline shape of the falling object must be con- 
bombs sidered. Balloonists sometimes throw 

empty bottles from their baskets and marvel at the 
crazy antics performed by the bottles and the length 
of time they take in reaching the ground. It is said 
to be the rather streamline form of the bottles that 
makes them dart about and thus delays their fall. 
They have no rudder to keep them headed in the one 
direction. 

In order thus to defeat the air and make the bombs 
drop straight and quickly they are made in the shape 
of a torpedo or a huge cigar with tail planes on them. 
A tail has the same effect on a bomb as the tail 
feathers have on an arrow. Bombs are made in the 
streamline form so the air will interfere with their 
path as little as possible. The torpedo-shaped bomb 
turns its sharp nose against the wind and cleaves 
without allowing its direction to be changed. When 
the bombs are first set free they do not drop, but 
take the forward motion of the machine and for a 
time actually travel horizontally. Then they turn 
gradually and shoot for the earth. As soon as the 



14 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

actual falling begins, the head dips, aided by the 
tail planes, and cuts a clean curve to the earth. 

Bombs are dropped on the shotgun plan, that is, 
they are dropped half a dozen or more in rapid suc- 
shotgtjn cession with the hope that one, at least, will 
aim find the mark. By releasing them in quick 

succession errors in judging altitude and speed are 
readily corrected, because the bombs are scattered 
along a line parallel with the path of the flyer. A 
dozen bombs may be aimed at a munitions factory. 
One perhaps hits its mark while the others are scat- 
tered over a residence district with terrible results. 
The opposing armies resorted more and more to the 
use of bombs in the later months of the war. Many 
tons were dropped each day. 

To this point we have spoken of the actual flyers 
and their training. Behind them is another group 
ground of men of the air service, just as important 
service as the aviators. Airplanes must have me- 
chanics who are of the highest skill. If the mechanic 
should make a very small mistake the flyer would 
probably lose his life, for the engine might stall over 
a wood where a landing was impossible and the air- 
man would be in great danger. Much care is taken 
in choosing mechanics. "When they are chosen they 
have special training in the factory and they get 
experience on the aviation field. They must be of 
the right type, must "make good," and must never 
fail the men they serve. For every machine in the 
air there must be two in reserve and each of the two 
machines has an additional engine. Behind these 
again are two training machines. British experience 
has shown that forty-six men are needed on the 
ground for every flyer. Thus you can see how great 
an army is necessary in order to put twenty-five 
hundred fighters in the air at one time. 



CHAPTER III 
CHASING A GERMAN FLYER 

Dear Uncle Francis : 

This is to wish you a Happy New Year, and to 
send you my best wishes from the front. I am 
nieuports located ' ' somewhere in the Vosges, ' ' sur- 
and spads rounded by hills, eight inches of snow, 
very cold weather, and Frenchmen. I am flying the 
little fighting Nieuport, a one-man machine with a 
fixed machine gun on its nose, synchronated to and 
firing through the whirling propeller. This air- 
plane is next to the fastest machine which the French 
have, and the only one faster is the Spad fighting 
machine. The latter is the fastest machine of the 
war. I have also flown it, and soon this Esquadrille 
is going to have them instead of Nieuports. The 
Nieuport makes about 120 miles per hour, while the 
Spad makes 140 miles per hour. 

Recently I had my first skirmish, or my first in- 
troduction to the Hun birdman. It happened two 
days ago. I was flying in patrol, with a French pilot 
in another machine, about two miles over the 
trenches. Suddenly to my right and several thou- 
sand feet below I saw a French observation balloon 
go up in flames. We both dived down to the spot, 
for we knew it was a Boche airplane that must have 
done the work, and there we circled around looking 
for the Hun, whom we could not find. 

As we did so, pretty little gray clouds began 
quickly forming all about our two machines, but 
bursting when these pretty little clouds began to 
shrapnel grow larger, come nearer, and make a 

15 



16 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

noise perceptible above the noise of our engines, 
they did not seem so pretty. They were bursting 
shrapnel, fired at us from the enemy trenches. We 
immediately directed our machines in a zig-zag 
course, to spoil ourselves as a target for the shrapnel 
guns, and luckily neither of our machines was 
touched. 

As I was zigzagging about like that I caught sight 
of the German airplane we had been looking for. I 
thereupon did a series of dips in front of the French- 
man's machine, to show him that I saw a Boche, and 
then started after him. Just then, however, the 
Frenchman got some engine trouble and had to glide 
back to our airdrome and land, so I chased the Hun 
alone. 

I had the faster machine, but he had a head start 
of about a mile, and he was headed straight for 
chasing Germany and his airdrome. I put on 
the boche "full steani," climbed my machine to 
five thousand meters, and maneuvered to get above 
the Boche, and between him and the sun, in order 
to have the advantage in case of a combat. I fol- 
lowed him for fifteen or twenty minutes, far over 
Hunland, but he would not turn to give battle. He 
had brought down the French balloon, and, feeling 
that a good day's work in itself, did not wish to risk 
more* in a battle. He saw me coming, however, for 
his course was straight as a die towards his air- 
drome. I only hoped that I could catch up with him 
before he landed and thus force him to battle, but 
it was too late. 

Just as I came into fair shooting distance and had 
emptied about 20 spent rounds of bullets at him, he 
dipped down, for he was in gliding distance of his 
airdrome, while I hovered around to see him land 
in the valley of the Rhine. I was disappointed to 
miss out so closely, merely by a matter of minutes, 



CHASING A GERMAN FLYER • 17 

or even seconds, at getting a chance at him, but hav- 
ing had only ten hours over the lines at that time it 
was probably the best for me. 

Much love and best wishes for a Happy New Year, 
from 

ALAN WINSLOW. 



CHAPTER IV 
OUR FIRST AIR VICTORY 

Lieuts. Alan F. Winslow and Douglas Campbell 
brought down the first two German airplanes to fall 
victims to the American aviators with the forces of 
General Pershing. The story is told at first hand by 
Lieutenant Winslow in his diary, which has been 
made public by the war department. 

Lieutenants Winslow and Campbell were on 
emergency call on the morning of April 14th, 1918, 
winslow and when at 8 :45 information was received 
Campbell that two German machines were 
maneuvering above a city only a mile away from the 
airdrome. Both lieutenants at once took the air. 
The following is Winslow's story: 

I had not made a complete half turn and was at 
about 250 meters when straight above and ahead of 
me in the mist of early morning, and not more than 
a hundred yards away, I saw a plane coming toward 
me with huge black crosses on the wings and tail. 

I was so furious to see a German directly over our 
aviation field that I swore out loud and violently 
opened fire. At the same time, to avoid my bullets, 
he slipped into a left-hand reversement and came 
down, firing on me. I climbed, however, in a right- 
hand spiral and slipped off, coming down directly 
behind him and on his tail. Again I violently opened 
fire. I had him at a rare advantage, which was due 
to the greater speed and maneuverability of our won- 
derful machines. I fired twenty to thirty rounds at 
him and could see my tracers entering his machine. 

Then, in another moment, his plane went straight 

18 



OUR FIRST AIR VICTORY 19 

down in an uncontrolled nose dive. I had put his 
enemy engine out of commission. I followed in a 
falls straight dive, firing all the way. At about 
six hundred feet above the ground he tried to regain 
control of his machine, but could not, and he crashed 
to the earth. I darted down near him, made a sharp 
turn by the wreck, to make sure he was out of com- 
mission, then made a victorious swoop down over 
him, and climbed up again to see if Doug needed any 
help with the other Boche, for I had caught a glimpse 
of their combat out of the corner of my eye. 

I rose to about 300 feet again to see Doug on the 
tail of his Boche. His tracer bullets were passing 
throughout the enemy plane. I climbed a little 
higher and was diving down on this second German 
and about to fire when I saw the German plane go 
up in flames and crash to earth. Doug had sent his 
German plane down one minute after I had shot 
down mine. 

Mind you, the fight took place only 300 meters up, 
in full view of all on the ground and in the nearby 
town, and it took place directly above our aviation 
field. 

When we landed only our respective mechanics 
were left in the drome. The whole camp was pour- 
welcome ing out, flying by on foot, bicycles, side 
home cars, automobiles; soldiers, women, chil- 
dren, majors, colonels, French and American, all 
poured out of the city. In ten minutes several thou- 
sand people must have gathered. Doug and I con- 
gratulated each other, and my mechanic, no longer 
military, jumped up and down, waving his hat, 
pounding me on the back instead of saluting, and 
yelled : ' ' That 's the stuff, old kid ! " 

Then Campbell and I rushed to our respective 
German wrecks. On the way there — it was only a 
half a mile — I ran into a huge crowd of soldiers, 
blue and khaki, pressing about one man. I pushed 



20 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

my way through the crowd and heard somebody 
triunnphantly say to the surrounded man in French : 

' ' There he is ; now you will believe he is an Amer- 
ican. ' ' 

I looked at the man — a scrawny, poorly clad little 
devil, dressed in a rotten German uniform. It was 
the Boche pilot of the machine I had shot down. 
Needless to say, I felt rather haughty to come face 
to face with my victim, now a prisoner, but did not 
know what to say. It seems he would not believe 
that an American officer had brought him down. He 
looked me all over and then asked me in good French 
if I was an American. When I answered "Yes" he 
had no more to say. 

There was a huge crowd around the wrecked plane, 
and the first man I ran into was our Major — the 
commanding officer — and he was the happiest man in 
the world outside of myself and Doug. A French 
and American General blew up in a limousine to 
congratulate us — colonels, majors, all the pilots, all 
the French officers, mechanics, everybody in the 
town and camp. All had seen the fight. 

Doug had set his Boche machine on fire at 300 
meters and it had fallen in flames, rolling over three 
dampbell'S times, and then completely burning up. 
victory There remained but a charred wreckage, 
like the sacrifice of some huge animal. The Boche 
pilot had been thrown out and was badly off. His 
face, hands, feet, nostrils and lungs were all burned, 
while his leg was broken. He is now in the hospital 
and my Boche is probably commencing his job of 
ditch-digging for the rest of the war. 

They got much valuable information from my man. 
He was a Pole; said he was not an officer because 
he was a Pole, although he had been an "aspirant" 
and a pilot at the front for two years. He said to 
me, with a sort of sigh of relief, throwing up his 



OUE FIEST AIR VICTOEY 21 

hands at the same time, "Alors, la guerre est fini 
pour moi." ("Well, the war is over for me.") 

That afternoon my wrecked Boche plane and the 
charred result of Doug's good work were exhibited 
in the public square of the town, surrounded by an 
armed guard and 'overlooked by a French military 
band. It also was a great day for the townspeople, 
and has had a good moral effect. You can imagine it 
when you realize it took place above their roof tops 
at only 300 meters, and that they were able to see the 
whole fight. The Americans are indeed welcome in 
the town now, and Doug and I can buy almost any- 
thing half price. ' 

An amusing incident was this — the fight was so 
near to the earth that bullets were flying dangerously 
all about the ground. No one was hurt save a 
French worker in the field, who received a hole 
through his ear from one of my bullets and is very 
proud of it." 

Both Winslow and Campbell were decorated by 
the French Government and were proposed for the 
American Distinguished Service Cross. 

•See my World War, Chapter 9. 



CHAPTER V 
DEFEATING THE SUBMARINE* 

About three months after the war opened, the 
German commander, Weighen, of the U-9, performed 
a noted exploit. In less than an hour he sank three 
British warships. A great panic arose among the 
British naval men. They did not know but that the 
submarine might sink the British fleet, or be the 
means of its final defeat. 

But after three months the submarines did very 
little in battle with warships. In the naval fight off 
u-boats vs. Helgoland, British light cruisers fought 
warships for six hours in waters that were fairly 
infested with German U-boats and came out un- 
scathed so far as torpedoes were concerned. There 
were submarines with the German fleet in the Dogger 
Bank battle also. Evening twilight, which put an 
end to the battle, brought ideal conditions for tor- 
pedo attacks, but this did not enable the submarine 
boats to make a single hit. 

The battleship has been sent to its station and it 
has been able to take its place in battle without harm 
from the submarine. This has been due to the 
screening devices. The great speed of the dread- 
naughts, combined with the speedy powers of the 
destroyers, have made an effective defense. Battle- 
ships have even been saved after being seriously 
crippled, like the "Lion," which was able to limp 
slowly home after the Dogger Bank battle, possibly 
surrounded by destroyers. 

It is fair to say that the submarine has proved 
deadly as a sea fighter in a single encounter, but as 

See my World War, Chapter 15. 

22 



DEFEATING THE SUBMARINE 23 

the new a part of a battle fleet it has proved dis- 
blockade appointing. It has prevented men-of- 
war from proceeding leisurely back and forth off 
the enemy's coast, and it has prevented them also 
from lying at anchor near by. It has forced England 
to a distant blockade and compelled her to keep her 
fleet moving about, but it has not destroyed it. 

The British cruisers and destroyers move back 
and forth in the North Sea at a rate of speed that a 
submarine cannot hope to match; and the blockade, 
instead of being close to shore, is usually hundreds 
of miles off the German coast. Still it is a true and 
effective blockade. 

The work of patrolling the enemy's coast is now 
done by fast cruisers and destroyers, and by armed 
trawlers. These trawlers are slow, but they are too 
shallow in draft for the torpedo of the submarine 
to hit them. They mount a gun or two that out- 
ranges the guns of the U-boat, and they do a great 
service in fishing for mines. 

There are several weaknesses of the submarine 
when it comes to fighting. It cannot carry heavy 
u-boat guns nor sufficient armor to protect it 
weakness from enemy fire, and it must come often 
to the surface to recharge its batteries. In fact, it 
must spend a large part of its time on the surface. 
It is also slow under water, moving from ten to four- 
teen knots at top speed, and can make only short 
spurts at that, on account of the quantity of fuel 
consumed in motion. On the surface, of course, it 
does better, obtaining a rate under full power of 
about eighteen knots. While this is too fast for the 
great bulk of merchantmen, it is no match for the 
men-of-war. 

The submarine has done wonders in worming its 
way underneath the surface of the water through 
nets and under mine fields. The British "7" pene- 
trated the Dardanelles, cruised as long as it wished 



24 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

on the surface of the Sea of Marmora and paid a 
short but lively call on Constantinople. After it had 
cruised twenty-four days in Turkish waters, it 
wormed its way back to the fleet through a maze of 
nets and mines that were laid especially to trap it in 
the Dardanelles. 

The Germans tried to use their submarines as 
blockade runners. They sent the Deutschland, a 
u blockade large submarine, with a wide radius of 
runners cruising, across the ocean to America; 
but its sister ship, the Bremen, never reached Amer- 
ica, and no one knows what became of it. Even the 
Deutschland was later changed into a mine layer ; so 
that as a blockade runner the submarine has proved 
a failure, since it cannot carry enough of a cargo to 
make it worth while. 

So, after all, the submarine has accomplished com- 
paratively little, except as a pirate. When the Ger- 
mans turned pirates with their submarines, the fate 
of the war hung upon the finding of something to 
reach this under-sea dog. 

At the very beginning of the war, the British 
established a highway for troop ships and supply 
channel ships across the channel. This highway, 
canal it is said, is protected on either side by 
a huge steel net reaching from the bottom of the 
channel to within a few fathoms of the surface. The 
meshes of these nets are nearly, but not quite, large 
enough to permit the passage of a submarine. The 
U-boats are thus caught in the meshes and the crews 
meet a fitting end by suffocation. 

Airplanes dart back and forth overhead, nests of 
mines head off the route from the enemy, and 
destroyers act as patrols on either hand. Scarcely 
a ship or a man has been lost crossing the channel. 

By a similar method, using heavy escorts of cruis- 
ers and destroyers, Canadian troop ships have made 
the long trip across from Halifax without loss. The 



DEFEATING THE SUBMARINE 25 

Germans succeeded in getting two or three of the 
American transports, but otherwise America's 
troops have gone to France by the hundreds of thou- 
sands without loss. 

Great damage can be done to unprotected ships by 
a few U-boats. It is said that not more than twenty- 
torpedo boat five are operating at any one time in 
destroyers British waters. When the United 
States declared war, the pirates were sinking so 
many merchant ships that if their success had con- 
tinued much longer England, who depends upon her 
ocean trade, would have been brought to her knees. 
Fortunately the United States was able to send at 
once a squadron of destroyers, the very kind of ves- 
sels needed. Just how many, or how large a fleet 
was sent, it is not allowed to be known; but it was 
these American destroyers that turned the scale and 
saved the day. 

The torpedo boat destroyer has proven very effec- 
tive against the submarine, as it is both speedy and 
quick at maneuvering on the surface. The destroyer 
is the best weapon yet devised against the sub- 
marine, and after America entered the war all the 
Allied nations built these as rapidly as possible. 

The presence of a submarine, even when well be- 
neath the surface, can be easily detected from an 
bombing airplane, whose observers can see sev- 
the u-boat eral fathoms directly downward into the 
water. The depth of the submarine is then estimated 
and it is destroyed by dropping a "depth-bomb." 
These can be so adjusted as to explode when sub- 
jected to a certain pressure. As the pressure of the 
water increases with the depth, the bomb is so 
adjusted, before dropping, as to explode when it 
reaches the level of the U-boat. The water transmits 
the force of the explosion in all directions, and the 
submarine, if one is near, has its sides caved in. 
Depth-bombs are also used by destroyers. 



26 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

But the real answer to Germany's lawless use of 
the submarine was America's huge ship-building 
America's program. In May, 1918, the tonnage of 
answer new ships built was, for the first time 
since February, 1917, greater than that of ships 
destroyed by submarines. The invention by the 
United States of the "standardized" ship, whose 
parts, like those of automobiles, are made in quan- 
tities from fixed patterns and "assembled" at the 
ship yards, has still further increased the output of 
new vessels, and rendered impossible the success of 
the submarine campaign. Our navy officers, coming 
back from across the waters, now speak of the U-boat 
with a confident tone, as though it has been defeated. 
They believe if Germany cannot master the Allies 
on the sea, she will be defeated in the end by this sea 
power. 



CHAPTER VI 
THE STORY OF TWO U-BOATS 

In 1916, before America entered the war, the Ger- 
man U-boat 53 came to America and touched at New- 
port, Khode Island. It was in command of Captain 
Hans Eose, an affable gentleman, who made a pleas- 
ing impression upon American naval officers. This 
U-boat, after leaving Newport, sank half a dozen 
merchant ships off Nantucket and steamed for home, 
while American destroyers picked up the survivors. 

For reasons of her own, Germany did not send 
the 53 back, but made her the flag ship of a flotilla 
of eight submarines for pirate work on the coasts of 
Europe, with Captain Rose the commander of the 
group. The fleet of submarines met in rendezvous 
every few days by wireless call from the commander. 

The big submarine, 53, was at length captured in 
1917 by a French destroyer and two mine sweepers. 
u-boat 53 It was taken uninjured. Captain Hans 
captured Rose was made prisoner, but not until he 
had destroyed all his papers to prevent valuable 
secrets getting into enemy hands. 

Valuable secrets, however, were found in the cap- 
tured U-53. So important were they that an Allied 
naval conference was held in the port to which she 
was towed. French, British and American naval 
officers attended. "When the submarine was seized 
and the French boarding party ascended into the 
hold they found the wireless equipment was intact. 
The wave length used by the Germans in wirelessing 
land stations and sister submarines was carefully 
noted. The log-book gave away the secrets that the 

27 



28 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAB 

captain had tried to keep by destroying the papers. 

The log explained that the U-53 was one of a 
double flotilla of eight submarines and the captain 
enemy was commander of the group. The log- 
secrets book also showed that this U-boat flotilla 
met in conference every few days. One of the Amer- 
ican officers suggested that they lay a trap and sum- 
mon the enemy boats to the captured U-boat, using 
German codes and signals. The enemy did not know 
their flag ship had been taken. The trap was set. 

The Allies summoned the sister boats of the enemy 
Jo meet at a certain place. Meantime a fleet of Brit- 
ish and American destroyers went into hiding near 
by. The other enemy submarines came willingly at 
the summons, and five of them were sunk by the 
Allied destroyers. This was the best day's hunt of 
the war for the pirate craft of Germany. Lloyd 
George startled the world by announcing the good 
news in Parliament. 

The U-53, under another name, is now patrolling 
every day for the Allies. Other German submarines 
recognize her as of German make and often approach 
herwithout fear. The French commander of the old 
53 is sure he has sunk two submarines and has hit 
several others. 

The U C-12 is another German submarine with a 
romantic story. After Austria and Italy had de- 
clared war on each other, Italy had reason to suspect 
that the Germans, although they were outwardly 
friendly, were aiding the Austrians. 

In June, 1915, the Italian mine sweepers which 
guarded one of the Italian naval bases on the 
mining a Adriatic, came upon a barrier of twelve 
naval port mines in the water that had been laid by 
the enemy. They were cleared away, but a little 
later another barrier of mines was found in much the 
same position. It was evident that the mines were 
placed there by an enemy submarine. 



THE STORY OF TWO U-BOATS 29 

The Italians determined that the next attempt on 
the part of the submarine should result in her own 
destruction. They had to wait until the following 
spring, when the submarine ventured again into the 
waters of the naval base to do her deadly work. This 
time she did not make her escape unobserved, but 
fell a victim of the Italian mines that had been placed 
for her. A loud explosion announced to the Italians 
that their enemy was sunk. 

The water in which the submarine met her fate 
was not very deep, and the commander of the Italian 
raising naval base had a brilliant idea. He would 
the uc-12 make an attempt to raise the sunken ves- 
sel. He hoped he could refit and repair her and use 
her in the Italian service. It was a desperate thing 
to attempt, for the commander knew she must have 
had a load of mines. 

He sent down divers to see where the submarine 
lay and she was cautiously fished up to the surface. 
She was a broken, tangled mass, at first sight, quite 
useless. 

When she came to the surface the Italians awoke 
to the perfidy of Germany. The U C-12 was of Ger- 
man make and her crew were German sailors. It 
was now clear that Germany was lending her sub- 
marines to aid Austria, while she pretended to re- 
main on friendly terms with her old ally, Italy. 

The log-book of the U C-12 showed that she made 
her trial trip on the Weser. Then she was towed 
through the Kiel Canal in 1915. Here she took on 
board the mines she was to sow in Italian waters. 
She was then sent in three pieces by rail from Kiel 
to Pola, where she arrived in July, 1915. Putting to 
sea here, she laid aside her German flag and took one 
from Austria. She was also provided with a British 
and French flag for all occasions. She had a Greek 
flag, too, so she might pose as a neutral. All these 
flags were found on the U C-12 when she was raised. 



30 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

Between the times she was laying mines she was 
active in the Adriatic carrying cargoes of rifles or 
otherwise aiding Austria. 

It took the Italian naval engineers many months 
to repair the U C-12, but it has been accomplished, 
and she now flies the tri-color emblem of Italy, Queen 
of the Adriatic. 



CHAPTER VII 
A BRITISH CAPTIVE ON A GERMAN "SUB" 

The captain of a certain English merchant vessel 
was taken prisoner by the commander of a sub- 
marine after his vessel had been torpedoed and spent 
fifteen days on the U-boat. He tells the following 
story: 

"My ship was torpedoed without warning. The 
force of the explosion was so great that the bridge 
was wrecked, and when I recovered from the shock 
I found the ship was sinking. None of the crew was 
injured and we were all able to get away in the boats. 

"As we were in British waters and it was broad 
daylight, I did not fear that we would not soon reach 
taken land, but hardly had we pulled clear of the 
captive sinking ship than the U emerged. The com- 
mander summoned us to his vessel and ordered me 
to go on board. After asking for details of my ship 
and cargo, he told me to consider myself a prisoner 
and sent the boats away. I was at once taken below 
and the vessel dived. 

"From what some English-speaking members of 
the crew told me, the submarine had been away from 
her base for some days. She was a fairly large craft, 
of recent numbering, having three torpedo tubes, two 
in the bows and one aft, and carrying ten torpedoes. 
She was also armed with a 4-inch gun just forward 
of the conning tower. 

"I had arrived just in time for the mid-day meal: 
stew with stringy meat, which was probably horse 
meals on flesh, small portions of sausage, and 
au-boat black bread. This bread, as the voyage 

31 



32 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

progressed, became mildewed, and then some bread 
of lighter color which had been kept in an hermeti- 
cally sealed receptacle was served out ; but this was 
even more unpalatable than the black. The other 
meals were breakfast and supper at which coffee, 
made of burnt barley and acorns, was served. The 
commander and officers of the U-boat fared the same 
as the lower ratings, but were able to supplement 
their allowance with tinned ham. 

"Life on board the submarine was by no means 
pleasant. Forced as we were to keep below the sur- 
life face to avoid the British war vessels, 

under sea the boat sweated, and all spare clothing 
became saturated with moisture, while the atmo- 
sphere often became very foul and breathing diffi- 
cult. While we were below surface the crew would 
switch on the talking machine. That was the band 
which played triumphantly when the U-boat got a 
victim. Sinking of an innocent merchantman caused 
that crew as much joy as if they had sunk a war 
vessel. 

"While I was on board we had 'victory music' on 
seven occasions, for six steamers were torpedoed and 
one sailing vessel sunk by gunfire, thirty-nine shells 
being necessary to do this. The U-boat also attacked 
by gunfire several other steamers during the voyage, 
but had to submerge owing to intervention of British 
war vessels. 

' ' On the third day I gathered that the U-boat was 
about to carry out an attack on a convoy which had 
the depth been sighted. The boat approached un- 
bomb der water for some distance and tor- 

pedoed a large steamer. Our whereabouts were evi- 
dently detected, for we dived rapidly to a great 
depth. Hardly had the boat got on an even keel 
when we heard a tremendous explosion which 
caused the submarine to vibrate from stem to stern. 
It was a depth charge. The effect on the crew was 



A BRITISH CAPTIVE ON A GERMAN ' ' SUB ' ' 33 

evident. All stood trembling, with faces blanched 
with fear, not attempting to speak a word, expecting 
a discharge. For some moments we waited. 

''Engines were stopped and all means were taken 
to prevent giving away our position. Minutes seem 
like hours in such a situation. I must admit that I 
was turning over in my mind whether I should ever 
see my family again. No further explosions, how- 
ever, took place, and after lying some eighteen fath- 
oms deep for a long period we continued on our 
voyage. 

"We had another experience with depth charges, 
or 'wasser bomben,' as the German sailors called 
A close them. The sailing ship referred to above 
call had just been sunk by shell fire, when two 

destroyers were sighted on the horizon, and down we 
went. By the microphones the propellers could be 
heard, and as the vessels came nearer we in the sub- 
marine could hear the thudding quite distinctly. To 
and fro the destroyers went, searching very care- 
fully for us. Apparently they picked up a clew, for 
there were two loud explosions ahead quite near 
enough to cause the submarine first to tremble and 
then roll about as though in a heavy sea. 

"Late the following night there was considerable 
rejoicing in the submarine. Germans had torpedoed 
an oil tanker, which, according to the commander, 
had sunk in thirty seconds. The next day we seemed 
to have got out of the track of steamers, and I went 
into the conning tower and saw the officers amusing 
themselves by shooting at gulls or at empty bottles. 

' ' By this time the vessel had evidently reached the 
extreme outward point of her voyage, and on our 
return trip three Norwegian ships were stopped for 
fresh food. Just after this there was more excite- 
ment, due to the discovery that a British submarine 
was in our vicinity. The crew could hear her, and 



34 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

they seemed in great fear lest she should attack. 
Again we remained submerged until night. 

' ' The submarine was equipped with powerful wire- 
less apparatus, and every day, about 9 p. m., re- 
america mained on the surface in wireless commu- 
at war nication with the base. One of the officers 
kept a record of these messages. One night the news 
arrived of the American declaration of war. It was 
eagerly discussed by the crew, some of whom ex- 
pressed the hope that they would be allowed to go 
on submarine service in the Gulf of Mexico in order 
to escape the severity of the North Sea. 

"In time we went into port and I was taken to 
a German prison camp from which I was exchanged 
and allowed to return to England.' ' 



CHAPTER VIII 
NAVAL DEFEAT IN THE DARDANELLES* 

''About February 15, 1915," says a newspaper 
correspondent, "I arrived in Constantinople. It 
was being voiced about that the British and French 
were sending a large fleet into the Mediterranean 
for the purpose of forcing the Dardanelles and tak- 
ing the Ottoman capital. How the news leaked 
through I do not know. The Turks and Germans 
got their information in Bucharest, but the news 
was later corroborated from Athens. 

"Those were anxious days in Constantinople, 
while officials of the Ottoman government never 
tired of asserting that the Allied fleet could not get 
through. However, certain German naval men, 
whose acquaintance I made, were not so confident. 
It seemed to be entirely a question of ammunition. 

"No ammunition could get through from Germany 
unless it passed through Roumania. Rumors were 
afloat that some of the Roumanian officials were not 
strictly honest; that through their neglect or dis- 
honesty, armor-piercing shells were reaching the 
Turks. Later events proved these rumors false, but 
the Allied fleet commanders believed these rumors 
and thus failed to renew their attacks at the critical 
time. 

' ' The Allied fleet attacked the Dardanelles in earn- 
est in March, 1915. The Turkish shore batteries 
the at the entrance to the Strait were silenced 

attack by tremendous expenditure of ammunition, 
and after the batteries along the outer Dardanelles 
were reduced, the Allied fleet entered the Strait. The 

•See my World War, Chapter 11. 

35 



36 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

chief performance here occurred on March 18th. 
Two shells from the super-dreadnaught, Queen 
Elizabeth, began the event at 11:20 sharp. While 
the debris of several houses was coming back to 
earth, I was making off in the hope of finding some 
shelter under the parapets of the fort. 

''For awhile the protection seemed ample. By 
noon it seemed not so ample and once more I re- 
ships treated. About one o'clock the fire of the 
vs. forts Allied fleet reached its maximum intensity. 
Out in the bay lay nineteen ships, and some thirty 
cruisers and other craft, and they were pumping 
shells into the Turkish fort at the rate of five every 
minute. It was one of the great days of the war; 
in one respect, the greatest. Never before had so 
large a fleet tried issues with coast batteries. The 
crash of artillery was frightful; houses collapsed 
as the result of the tremors. 

' ' By noon some of the surrounding towns were in 
flames. The shells from the Allied guns threw up 
more earth gushers in and near the forts. Out on 
the bay rose the water spouts caused by the Turkish 
blueheads. Now and then the roar of artillery made 
it impossible, for a minute at a time, to hear a word 
spoken directly into the ear, and even the leather- 
lunged Turkish and German officers had difficulty in 
making themselves understood to their crews, de- 
spite the use of large megaphones. 

"Out on the Allied ships the gunners were serv- 
ing guns as fast as they could be served. Volley 
came upon volley, crash upon crash, and above this 
din rang the stentorian ' Fire ! ' of the officers of the 
Turkish batteries. For two hours this chaos 
reigned. 

"The large ships had so far given the shells of 
the Turk a wide berth, but that led to a waste of 
at long ammunition and of time. Gradually the 
range two circles formed by the fleet enlarged, 



NAVAL DEFEAT IN THE DARDANELLES 37 

bringing the ships nearer. With splendid reckless- 
ness the 'Bouvet,' one of the French ships of the 
line, came in closer. As the Bouvet swung around 
at the nearest point four shafts of flame issued from 
behind the parapet, and four shells sped toward the 
Bouvet. One of them -raised a huge waterspout 
near the stern of the vessel. A red sheath of sparks 
leaped up and disappeared almost instantly as the 
particles of steel cooled. In the next instant a tre- 
mendous cloud of smoke, steam, and water arose 
from the body of the ship ; a second later she showed 
a heavy list. More shells were being rammed into 
the guns. The Bouvet was no longer moving. With 
a lurch to one side she disappeared under the sur- 
face at exactly two o'clock by our watch. 

"There was a lull everywhere as men jumped out 
on the parapet to see the first of the day's victims 
bouvet go down. Then a mighty chorus of shouts 
sinks sped over the waters of the Dardanelles and 
reverberated in the hills. During the short pause 
an attempt was made to save the few men whom the 
ship had not taken down in her plunge. So far as 
I could see, a dozen were swimming in the water. 
From the British ship which had hurried *to the 
scene when the Bouvet was first struck, some small 
boats put out and moving around in the water, 
looked like things of burnished silver. How many 
men were picked up I do not know. I should say 
that if six or seven were saved from the comple- 
ment of about two hundred souls, the number is 
high. 

"The day wore on. The Bouvet had made the 
Allied commander more cautious. He kept his ships 
out of range, so far as the Turkish shore guns wfere 
concerned, but did not have that choice with regard 
to the howitzers which the Turks had stationed on 
the hills. These guns kept pounding the decks of 
the British and French vessels and by four o'clock 



38 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

they had done much damage. The ' Queen Eliza- 
beth,' the terror of the Dardanelles contingent, had 
been put out of action. The 'Irresistible,' 'Ocean,' 
and 'Inflexible,' and two others which I could not 
identify, were being made into helpless playthings 
of the current in the strait.- From the 'Irresistible' 
and 'Ocean,' the crews were being taken off. The 
other ships were being towed back to the entrance 
of the Dardanelles and away from the pest of the 
high-angled guns in the hills. 

' ' The ' Irresistible ' had the bad luck to get into the 
counter-current of the straits that sweeps north- 
beitish ward along the shore. The speed of the 
losses water is not very great, but it made futile 
all efforts on the part of the British to get the ves- 
sel out of the danger zone into which she was 
drifting. Before a few minutes had passed the 
'Irresistible' had drifted into range of one of the 
forts. Of twenty-five shells fired by the Turks nine- 
teen took effect and the vessel sank, taking with her 
the remainder of the crew into the deep. The ' Ocean' 
meanwhile had been towed into the bay, but she 
leaked so much that all efforts to save her were 
frustrated and she, too, sank in deep water. 

"There is no doubt that the day was against the 
Allied fleet. The total casualties in killed and 
wounded were not more than a hundred among the 
Turks and only one gun had been put out of action 
while three others were slightly damaged. Yet 
there was gloom among the Turks and I suspected 
the reason was a lack of shells, but had no confirma- 
tion until about midnight, when I asked one of the 
Turkish commanders, 'What is the outlook for to- 
morrow?' 'Not so very good,' he replied. 

" 'Not so very good?' 

" 'No.' 

" 'What's the matter?' 

" 'That I cannot tell you,' replied the officer, 'but 



NAVAL DEFEAT IN THE DARDANELLES 39 

at any rate if the enemy fleet returns tomorrow it 
short of will go badly with us. They have lost 
shells heavily today to be sure, but I know the 
British well enough to know that they will be back 
here bright and early tomorrow. If you have any- 
thing around here that you wish to save, I would 
advise you to get out of here early in the morning. ' 

"Another officer told me that it had been decided 
that if the Allied fleet returned in the morning the 
coast batteries were to hold ou until the last shell 
and then the crews were to take to the hills. That 
very night the archives and the treasures of the 
Sultan and the Ottoman government were being 
packed, and during the succeeding day they were to 
be taken to the ancient capital. The Sultan and the 
government would go over there during the night 
of March 19th. If the Allied fleet came back in the 
morning then this would be necessary, for the reason 
that the British warships would lie before Con- 
stantinople by sunset of the 20th. 

"Everybody expected the British fleet to return, 
but it did not. Had the Allies known how little am- 
the munition the Turks had left in the 

results Dardanelles forts, they would doubtless 
have returned the next day and captured Con- 
stantinople." 

The European war might now be a thing of the 
past, if the Allies had followed up their successes 
at the Dardanelles. With Constantinople in the 
hands of the British, Bulgaria would never have 
dared to range herself on the side of the Central 
Powers. In that event, the entire Balkan Penin- 
sula would have formed a solid Allied block. With 
that achieved, the war would have been ended. The 
failure of the Dardanelles operations caused not 
alone the destruction of Serbia and Roumania, but 
also prevented the development of the full military 
power of Russia. 



CHAPTER IX 
CAMOUFLAGE ON LAND AND SEA 

Because of the accuracy of the long range guns 
and the keen eyes of airplanes it has been found 
necessary to protect men and guns by every device 
known. This art of concealment is known as camou- 
flage, and it has reached a remarkable degree of 
development. 

The artist, called camoufleur, resorted to nature 
for his first lessons. The tawny lion and striped 
nature's tiger resemble the tall yellow bunch grass 
teaching of the jungle. The giraffe is clothed with 
a quaint diamond pattern exactly like the flickering 
lights among the acacia trees on which it feeds. The 
leopard, the jaguar and all spotted cats, the spotted 
deer and the dappled horse are colored to imitate 
light under a shady tree. The elephant has devel- 
oped a hazy brown like the great trees of the deepest 
forest. Thus many animals, birds and insects are 
colored by nature for concealment in their natural 
landscape. Many of them change their clothes with 
the seasons, wearing white for the snowy winters 
and brown for the torrid summers to protect them 
from their enemies. 

In exactly the same way the great armies have 
been forced to seek shelter. The khaki blends per- 
aemy fectly with the grasses and timber of tem- 

uniforms perate regions. The German field-gray is 
a good imitation of the shadows cast by woods or 
entrenchments on a sunny day and blends very nicely 
either with rain or fog. The horizon blue of the 
French armies tones well into the average landscape. 

40 



CAMOUFLAGE ON LAND AND SEA 41 

An army of today when ordered to "stand fast" is 
almost invisible at a half mile. 

In the early part of the war the British made one 
mistake. The service cap was kept taut with a wire 
hoop inside the rim of its flat top. The top, so 
stretched, reflected sunlight and offered a fine tar- 
get for enemy marksmen. This was soon discov- 
ered and the wire was removed. 

Strong and irregular coloring breaks the outline 
of any object; so not only tents but wagon covers 
strong and huts are made to look like the patched 
colors and rough ground of camps and roadways. 

The bell-shaped tents, formerly used, were vis- 
ible at a distance of several miles and made perfect 
targets for heavy artillery. Now all of them are 
painted with patches of different colors, the bolder, 
the better. 

When the German airplane observers get a peep 
at our lines the things that they think they see, are 
not there at all, while the guns that they can neither 
see nor photograph are all the while pounding the 
enemy trenches. 

Camouflage is accomplished in many ways, by 
painting, by screens, by boughs of trees, by wisps 
of raffia tied in a net, like that on a tennis court. 
Stacks of ammunition, garages, batteries and road- 
ways are screened by canvas, painted like the 
ground, so that they cannot be discovered by an 
aviator. Sometimes motor trucks and guns on the 
road are covered with leafy boughs or layers of 
hay. Everything is camouflaged. Nowhere do you 
see a long gun thrusting its black snout through the 
green bushes or trees. 

On one occasion it was necessary to move a 
French division through a certain village. At one 
painted point a cross street opened directly toward 
canvas the German lines. A strip of canvas was 
painted by the camoufleurs with an exact reproduc- 



42 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

tion of the background seen by looking down this 
street. This canvas was stretched across the street 
by night on the German side of the highway, and 
the entire French division passed behind it without 
being detected by the enemy. 

In the "No Man's Land" between the trenches 
on one occasion lay a dead horse. The French cam- 
a paper oufleurs prepared an exact duplicate of it 
horse in papier mache. One dark night a 
scouting party removed the dead animal and sub- 
stituted the imitation, first digging under it a shal- 
low pit. In this pit they placed an observer, who 
for several days watched the German trenches 
through small peep-holes cut in the papier mache 
shell, and reported what he saw through a telephone 
wire communicating with headquarters. 

It is a simple thing to cloak a gun on land, by 
using a screen of bushes or foliage, or by mottling 
concealing it with paint so that its contour, or out- 
A ship line, disappears. But the ship, afloat, 

cannot easily disguise itself, except by a smoke 
screen. Even when painted a single tone of gray it 
can be seen rather distinctly with the sky as a back- 
ground. 

Atmospheric gray and paint-brush gray are two 
very different things so far as our ability to see 
them is concerned. Paint-brush gray is obtained by 
mixing black and white pigments, while atmospheric 
gray is a vibratory effect resulting from the min- 
gling of red, green and violet rays of light. The 
quality of this gray changes from hour to hour as 
one or another of these light rays predominates. 
No single paint color could adjust itself to these 
changes. 

The U-boat commander, in order to launch his 
torpedo with a fair chance of hitting the target, 
"SUB" aims must know how far off the enemy ship 
ahead is, and whether her course is bringing 



CAMOUFLAGE ON LAND AND SEA 43 

her closer or taking her away. He must know, too, 
about how fast she is moving. With these factors 
fairly gauged he must direct the torpedo far enough 
ahead of the moving target to allow for the time of 
flight and for the advance of the enemy ship. It is 
the same problem as that of the duck hunter, who 
must estimate the speed and direction of flight and 
shoot far enough ahead to allow for them. 

Merchantmen are now armed with fairly heavy 
guns and these drive the U-boats to cover beneath 
the surface. The submarine commander must then 
keep track of his moving target by means of a peri- 
scope, which is a poor substitute for the naked eye 
or for the binocular vision provided by good field 
glasses. The periscope is one-eyed, which makes it 
very difficult to estimate distance. 

Upon the field of the periscope there are a num- 
ber of horizontal and vertical lines. The horizontal 
lines are spaced to show the height of a ship at dis- 
tances of 1,000, 2,000, and 3,000 yards. By these the 
observer estimates the distance or range of the 
enemy vessel. The vertical lines are spaced to show 
time intervals at those different distances so as to 
determine the speed of the vessel passing across 
them. 

The camoufleur, therefore, so disguises his ship as 
to deceive the U-boat captain as to distance. In 
concealing a order to estimate distance the com- 
ship'S height mander of the submarine must be 
able to measure the height of the enemy ship from 
her true water line to the top of her smokestack. 
This is a reasonably constant figure among freight- 
ers and may be pretty closely estimated in cases of 
other larger merchant ships and well-known types 
of naval vessels. Any coloring that will tend to 
obliterate the actual water line or conceal or confuse 
the top of a steamer's smokestack will defeat the 
observer in the U-boat in his endeavor to determine 



44 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

the distance or range of his target. The water line 
is often concealed by painting the sides of the ship 
with stripes in wavy lines to look like the surface of 
the sea. Another device is to "paint off" the stern 
or paint part of the smokestacks white to make them 
appear short and farther away. This will throw the 
U-boat gunner out in calculating how far ahead to 
launch his torpedo. 

The camoufleur also paints his ship so as to dis- 
guise her outline. The usual lighter portions are 
disguising toned down and dull portions are 
its outline thrown up by painting them in bright 
colors. The light and shade on the hull, funnels, 
and other parts of the vessel are reversed, thereby 
confusing the observer both as to the length of the 
ship and the angle of her approach or departure. 
Some ships are painted to appear as though they 
were sinking. Others have the hull of a smaller ves- 
sel painted upon their side. Sometimes they paint 
their ships with great splotches of strong pink, blue 
and green. One or another of these colors becomes 
prominent in different qualities of light and thus 
conceals the form of the vessel. 

It is known that the eye tires in a minute or two 
in looking through a periscope even in broad day- 
light, and that such fatigue causes errors in judg- 
ing both speed and range. Marine camouflage is so 
planned that it will more quickly tire and bewilder 
the observer, and thus defeat his aim. 



CHAPTER X 
FIGHTING WITH POISON GAS 

The Germans began a new horror of warfare when 
they introduced the use of poisonous gas. The use 
Germany of poison in war in any form was out- 
tjses gas lawed by all civilized nations centuries 
ago as being too cruel and barbarous for fair fight- 
ing ; but Germany broke over this rule as she did all 
other civilized rules of warfare. The first gas attack 
was made in April, 1916, and the whole course of 
the war was changed.* 

A deserter had come into the Allied trenches a 
week before the attack and told the Allies the whole 
story. He said that the Germans were preparing to 
poison the English with gas and that they had cylin- 
ders full of it installed in their trenches. No one 
believed him and no notice was taken of his story. 

The first attack, therefore, was made against men 
who were entirely unprepared for it. The Germans 
almost broke through the line of the Allies before 
Ypres. It was saved only by the heroic soldiers of 
Canada, who extended their line to fill up the gap 
and held it for several days till reinforcements came. 
We do not know all of the story, because the men 
who could have told us most about it did not come 
back. The Germans claimed that the Allies lost six 
thousand men killed and as many more prisoners. 

When Germany released the first wave of poison 
gas it is said that the British general in command 
British wired London that if some protection were 
in peril not provided within three days the whole 
British line would be compelled to retire. Within 

♦Bee World War, Chapter 12. 

45 



46 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

thirty-six hours a million and a half gas-masks were 
made by heroic efforts and delivered at the front. 
They were simple gauze affairs containing some 
chemical to kill the effect of the dread chlorine gas 
which was used by the enemy. 

When the Germans first began to use gas, they 
adopted a fairly simple method, but it required 
the gas some preparation beforehand. A hole was 
wave dug in the bottom of the trench close 
underneath the parapet and a cylinder of com- 
pressed gas was buried in the hole. It was an ordi- 
nary cylinder like that used for oxygen or hydro- 
gen. The cylinder was first covered with a quilt of 
moss, and then with sand bags. When the attack 
was made the sand bags and protecting cover were 
taken off the cylinder and each cylinder was con- 
nected with a lead pipe, which was bent over the top 
of the parapet. The sand bag was laid on the noz- 
zle to prevent the back kick of the outrushing gas 
from throwing the pipe into the trench. 

In all these first attacks chlorine was the gas 
employed. This is heavier than air and can be used 
chlorine only when the enemy has a lower posi- 
gas tion, because it flows down hill like water. 

It produces intense irritation of the throat and 
lungs, and even when not fatal, incapacitates the 
victim for days or weeks. A successful attack, by 
the method described above, can be made only when 
the wind is blowing toward the enemy, and on sev- 
eral occasions the wind is known to have changed 
and carried the gas back to the people that set it 
free. To avoid this danger the Germans have 
almost abandoned the use of the gas cloud and have 
substituted gas shells. 

These shells are now the most important of all 
methods of gas fighting on the western front, and 
they are still being developed. The quantity of gas 
that can be sent over in a shell is not more than six 



FIGHTING WITH POISON GAS 47 

pounds, whereas the German gas cylinders contained 
forty pounds of gas. To put the same amount of 
gas as with gas clouds on a wide front, say in five 
minutes, requires an enormous number of shells. 

There is, however, a threefold advantage in the 
use of gas shells. The user is not dependent upon 
use of the winds ; he can use the ordinary 

gas shells guns and not have to put in special 
apparatus in front trenches where they are in the 
way, and he can pick his target with all the accuracy 
of artillery fire. Moreover, the gas shells can reach 
targets that could not be reached with direct high 
explosives, for the gas will sink into a pit where a 
gun is being fired even when the gun has overhead 
covering. The crew of the gun must go on firing 
with gas masks on. When some of their number 
have been killed the task of the smaller number left 
behind working in masks is very trying. With gas 
shells one may reach dugouts just beyond the crest 
of a hill, or sunken roads on the further slope. This 
cannot be done with direct shells. Gas sinks rapidly 
into a dugout, especially if it has two or more doors. 

The first shells were filled with what is known as 
"tear gas," because they made the enemies' eyes 
gas water profusely and forced the men to take 
masks time to wipe the tears away or fight half 
blinded. The aim now is to use poison in the shells 
that will kill as well as annoy. After the first attack 
the British quickly developed an excellent mask and 
helmet. The gas masks have proved a success. Up 
to the present there has been no gas brought out on 
either side that can be depended upon to go through 
the enemy's masks. Chlorine is still much used both 
for gas waves and in shells charged with liquefied 
gas under high pressure. The manufacture of chlor- 
ine on a very large scale speedily became one of the 
great munition industries of the United States. 



48 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

Even more terrible than chlorine is phosgene, 
which is a combination of chlorine with that other 
new poison deadly gas, carbon monoxide. This 
gases latter is produced in a coal or charcoal 

stove when the glowing coal cannot get a sufficient 
supply of air for complete combustion. Phosgene is 
heavier than chlorine and was often used for the gas 
wave attack under the favor of the winds. 

The chlorine gas wave could be seen and gave 
the enemy time to don masks. The Germans finally 
used an invisible, odorless gas which could not be 
detected for two hours. As there was no odor the 
troops attacked could not tell they had been gassed 
until it was too late. The gas shells and the explo- 
sive shells came over in such great numbers that it 
seemed impossible to distinguish one from the other. 
There is, however, a difference in the sound of the 
explosions, which soon enables one to tell them 
apart. 

Since the Germans began using " mustard" gas 
in 1917, it has been of all their gases the most em- 
mtjstard ployed against the Allied soldiers. It sel- 
gas dom kills outright, but it seriously affects 

the skin and membranes, inflicting the most painful 
burns and putting the men out of service for three 
months. Its great value lies in the fact that mustard 
gas is heavier than the others and will lie in the 
woods or valleys or shell holes for days at a time, 
while the other gases float away. 

Mustard gas is a powerful producer of tears. 
After several hours the eyes begin to swell and blis- 
ter, causing intense pain. The nose discharges 
freely and severe coughing and vomiting ensue. 

Direct contact with the spray causes blistering of 
the skin, and the vapor penetrates through the cloth- 
ing. The symptoms are similar to pneumonia — 
high fever, heavy breathing and often stupor. Gas 
masks, of course, do not protect against this. 



FIGHTING WITH POISON GAS 49 

The damage done by mustard gas is of 'slow and 
insidious development, the height being reached 
gas from five to ten days after the burn is 

sufferers received. Healing is slow. It is deadly 
poison to the lungs; a single whiff of it will cause 
agonized coughing and gasping for breath. These 
spasms may continue for days and they leave the 
lungs so raw that pneumonia or tuberculosis is 
likely to follow. A strong dose is more quickly fatal. 
There is perhaps not a more cruel and painful death 
than that by gas. 

Mustard gas is employed in shells of all calibers 
up to eight inches. In one recent attack lasting 
forty-eight hours, the Germans used 7,000 tons of it, 
At Armentieres the gutters ran with the horrible 
reddish-brown liquid. It has killed men as far back 
as twelve miles from the front. 

Mustard gas, besides being used in direct attack, 
is also used for ''neutralization." For instance, 
where supplies and ammunition are being brought 
up, a few mustard gas shells will result in danger- 
ous confusion and delay. A part of the infantry is 
"neutralized" by having food and ammunition cut 
down. If the shell hurts as well as neutralizes, so 
much the better. 

President Wilson declared at first that he would 
not use gas. He thought it to be too horrible a way 
of fighting. But the Germans kept inventing dead- 
lier types of gas, which they were using against the 
Americans. No matter how much we dislike this 
kind of warfare, we had to begin to use gas to pro- 
tect our men. 

The first gas attacks on American soldiers re- 
sulted in several deaths. Sixty-seven of our men 
inhaled the poisonous fumes. Five died before day- 
light came; some of the others were kept alive by 
oxygen. Sixty-one were treated in the hospitals, 



50 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

where their agony caused the surgeons to curse the 
Kaiser and all his fiendish work. 

The American mask to fight mustard gas is of the 
box respirator type. The hood is of rubber. Breath- 
american ing is through the mouth, pincers shut- 
gas mask ting off the nostrils. The gas-charged air 
enters through the bottom of the canisters, where by 
means of neutralizing chemicals it is purified. From 
the top of the canister the air is drawn into the 
lungs. There is a one-way shutter valve in the hood 
through which the air comes out. This mask is 
designed to last ten hours. For artillerymen the 
War Department has made an oil suit which incloses 
the soldier bodily. 

The deaths now are usually due to surprise or to 
the lack of training in the use of masks. Our sol- 
diers are trained to use gas masks here in home 
camps. The mask must be put on and adjusted 
within six seconds. This requires a considerable 
amount of training to be done under field conditions. 

Dug-outs are protected from gases heavier than 
air by curtains of burlap hung at the doors and kept 
dug-outs wet with absorbent liquids. Mustard 
protected gas is removed from trenches and shell 
holes by means of great shovels made of canvas. 
These are found to work even better than fans. 

The nature of the various gases used by the Ger- 
mans has been discovered by examining shells which 
failed to explode. Soon after the Germans started 
to use mustard gas, Allied chemists found out how 
it was made and produced it. But for a long time 
the Allied forces at the front did not have mustard 
gas to use, for, while the Allied chemists could pro- 
duce it in the laboratories, they could not produce it 
in large quantities. 

Finally a method was found and the Allied armies 
were supplied with mustard gas for use against the 



FIGHTING WITH POISON GAS 51 

Germans. It is said that in our first gas attack upon 
the Germans they lost five hundred men, for they 
were unprepared for this gas. They had then to 
work out devices to protect their soldiers from this 
horrible stuff. There is a rubber famine in Ger- 
many and this has made many problems more diffi- 
cult for them. So fatal were the gases used that 
finally army horses and mules, Red Cross dogs and 
even carrier pigeons had to be fitted with gas masks. 



CHAPTER XI 
HOW CHEMISTS AID THE FIGHTERS 

In this war science has been used as never before. 
Germany, having been for many years the leader in 
matters of science, expected by the use of her great 
chemists to bring a speedy victory. The Allies, 
however, have kept close on her heels and in many 
cases taken the lead in new discoveries. Many won- 
derful secrets on both sides that have aided in the 
struggle and that will bring blessings to mankind 
in the centuries to come, will not be known till the 
war is over. 

But much that science has done we are allowed to 
know about. Medicine is doing wonders in protect- 
shoetage of ing the millions of men in arms against 
medicines disease in camps and trenches. In pre- 
vious wars more men fell victims of disease than 
fell on the battlefields. Even more wonderful than 
preventing disease is the record in saving life and 
limb from the carnage of the terrible battle front. 
Without the aid of chemistry the supply of medicine 
would have fallen woefully short. 

In the early stages of the war there was much 
suffering in the base hospitals because of the short- 
age of drugs that deaden pain. Here, too, the chem- 
ists made new discoveries. Early in the war cocaine 
was much used to destroy pain, but it proved dan- 
gerously poisonous and caused many deaths. More- 
over, the supply was limited and its cost was pro- 
hibitive for all but the wealthy. Chemists made a 
profound study of the arrangement of the atoms in 
the molecule of cocaine and gave the world the secret 

52 



HOW CHEMISTS AID THE FIGHTERS 53 

for making similar but simpler drugs, which can 
now be made in any quantity from coal-tar products. 
One of the best of these drugs is called procaine, 
which is only one-sixth as poisonous as cocaine, and 
can be used without danger. Many other new drugs 
have been produced by the chemists since the war 
began. 

Modern armies and fleets on the sea and in the 
air must have strong aids to the eye. When America 
eyes for entered the war one of many serious 

the fighters problems confronting us was the 
problem of securing optical glass. Upon this de- 
pends the keenness of vision of the modern range 
finders, of telescopes, field glasses and cameras. Our 
navy was growing tremendously and needed good 
"eyes" to spot the submarines. Our supply of this 
optical glass had formerly come from Germany and 
we had so little of it that our navy was borrowing 
from citizens all the fine field-glasses available. 

Optical glasses of the purest quality depend upon 
the chemist, and our chemists went to the task. A 
very brilliant and rapid solution of the problem was 
worked out by a staff of American chemists under 
the able direction of Dr. Arthur L. Day. It is one 
of our great achievements in this war. 

In making the airplane with its load of engine, 
armor, ammunition and pilot, the chemists were 
strength and again summoned, because alloys 
resistance were needed to combine with steel 
and other metals in order to obtain the greatest 
strength and toughness with the least possible 
weight. Chemists tested all the elements that go to 
make up an airplane — its resistance to the moisture 
of the clouds and the frigidity of the skies. They 
tested the fuel of the engine, the lubricant oils, the 
metal of the engine and framework, the material of 
the wings and of their coating. These are all prob- 



54 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

lems of chemistry, and investigators are still at 
work on them seeking improvement. 

As with the airplane, so with the submarine. We 
are almost sorry the men of science were so success- 
ful in working out problems of the U-boat, because 
of the cruel and lawless ways in which it has been 
used by our enemies. The men of science learned 
how to store oxygen for the men to breathe, they 
devised ways of absorbing the foul gases breathed 
out by the crew so they would not suffocate. They 
made electric storage batteries to propel the craft 
while under water. There were many other such 
problems to be solved. 

Then there was the problem of supplying our 
country with substitutes for the chemicals that we 
had been importing from abroad. We needed drugs 
for the health of our people at home and for our 
army and navy. Almost all the essential drugs are 
now being manufactured in the United States. Some 
of them are superior even to the original German 
brand and are sold at a lower price to our people. 
Our chemists are all the time searching to discover 
new and, if possible, better remedies than those made 
under foreign patents. 

All dyes for coloring clothing, leather and the like, 
came from Germany before the war. This supply 
American wa s cut off in 1914 by the British fleet, 
dyes which drove all German commerce from 

the sea. It looked for a time as though we should 
have to be contented with white clothing. But our 
chemists set themselves to the task and were suc- 
cessful. It begins to look as though Germany has 
lost for all time the bulk of her dye-trade with us, 
for we are now making the blues and blacks and 
other plain colors in as good quality as those we were 
getting from Germany. In 1914 we had only six fac- 
tories making dyes. Now we have nearly a hundred, 
with as many more building. The dye industry here 



HOW CHEMISTS AID THE FIGHTERS 55 

will probably need a tariff protection for a time 
after the war. 

The mammoth steel industry is our greatest chem- 
ical industry, for it is a series of chemical operations 
chemistry carried out on a huge scale. The chem- 
of steel ist is relied upon to show how to make 
the steel tough, or hard, or elastic, and how to tem- 
per it so it will resist heat or cold by mixing with it 
other components. He must show how to make guns 
with a longer life, how to make armor stronger, how 
to preserve the cutting edge of high-speed tools 
working at temperatures at which ordinary steel 
would melt like butter on a July day. All the way 
from the assaying of the ore at the mouth of the 
mine through the many steps until finished steel is 
made, many specimens are drawn off and sent to the 
chemical laboratory for rapid tests. 

Side by side with steel stand the explosives for 
the millions of shells for the firing line. From tolu- 
ene, a coal tar product, with the aid of nitric and 
sulphuric acids, many tons of the deadly trinitro- 
toluol or "T. N. T." are made daily. The power of 
this explosive was never shown in a more tragic 
manner than by the recent destruction of the city of 
Halifax. This calamity was brought about by the 
explosion of a cargo of "T. N. T." in the harbor. 

Other high power explosives, such as picric acid, 
gun cotton, and dynamite, are being manufactured 
here on a colossal scale under the direction of expert 
chemists. If the process goes a bit fast, or gets too 
hot, man loses control of the giant powers and must 
flee to escape the volcanic upheaval. 

These explosives, we are told, contain huge quan- 
tities of electricity ready to leap from atom to atom 
like a flash, and when they explode they produce 
enormous amounts of gases that can in a breath 
destroy cities or remove hills by their quick expan- 
sion. 



56 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

The manufacture of sulphuric acid needed for ex- 
plosives is in itself a vast industry, working at its 
high utmost capacity and seeking sulphur 

explosives from every available source. For the 
nitric acid we are still dependent on the nitrates of 
Chile and Peru, but in August, 1917, our government 
began the erection of plants for the production of 
nitric acid from the atmosphere like those of Ger- 
many. 

It may be that the war will be decided in favor of 
the nation that can hurl against the enemy the 
greater number of thousands of tons of "T. N. T." 
or some other dreadful explosive. 



CHAPTER XII 
AMERICAN TROOPS IN LONDON 

(From the London Press) 

"It was such a day as might have been in August, 
1914, had our troops been permitted to march the 
London and streets in sunlight. To their mys- 
the "yanks" terious and appointed end they stole 
away in the lonely darkness of night, and no voice 
cheered them and no hand held theirs in greeting 
or farewell. Since then the official mind has learnt 
to think a little differently— a little more sympa- 
thetically, perhaps. So it was given to us to greet 
America as we might have greeted the British sol- 
diers, and all our hidden pride and restrained en- 
thusiasm burst forth yesterday and were offered 
freely to the American soldiers whom we surely may 
also call 'ours.' 

If they were not ours before, they became ours 
yesterday. We adopted them; they became some- 
thing more to us than soldiers. In those hours of 
great cheering a sense of intimate kinship was born 
that will outlast the agonies of war. 

It was not, in the superficial meaning, a pic- 
turesque procession. But it was intensely moving, 
very inspiring, and there could be no greater mes- 
sage of cheer and consolation in time of war-weari- 
ness than the message in the eyes and in the gait of 
every American soldier who passed through our 
city yesterday. That message was, "we mean to 
see it through." 

^ Very early in the morning people discovered their 
viewpoints and waited patiently, watching the enor- 

57 



58 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

London's mous crowds that joined them. Traffic 
holiday was diverted or stopped altogether. Shops 
were shut and business was suspended. And later 
the meeting of the War Cabinet itself was adjourned 
so that the Prime Minister and his colleagues might 
become as the people of the streets, making greeting 
to the men who "meant to see it through." 

Mounted police headed the procession. Following 
was the band of Life Guards — and then came the 
Americans. Londoners are not very ready to cheer. 
Theirs is the way of silent tribute. But yesterday 
they forgot the silly traditions of British reserve. 
They might have been Irish or Italian in their wild 
enthusiasm. For, as the first Americans were seen, 
cheers were raised such as never before have been 
heard in London. 

Along the roadway, strewn with petals of roses 
flung by women, the Americans marched. In the dis- 
tance they looked a little like Australians. They 
wore the familiar slouch hat tied with red cord, and 
canvas gaiters, and they carried their rifles with all 
the neatness of the experienced campaigner. 

Stern, grave of face they were, looking straight 
ahead, as if conscious of the stupendous importance 
of their mission. • It seemed, indeed, as if to them 
this was as much the road to war as the shell-broken 
dusty highways of France. 

Louder and still louder rose the cries as the Stars 
and Stripes came in view. Soldiers in the crowd 
saluted; men raised their hats, and women threw 
their flowers and waved their handkerchiefs — and 
some of them sobbed happy tears of pride such as 
no man or woman need remember with shame. 

At intervals passed the bands of Grenadier 
Guards, the Irish Guards, with their kilted pipers; 
the Welsh and the Scotch Guards, while flag-bearers 
with the Stars and Stripes, and in one instance with 



AMERICAN TROOPS IN LONDON 59 

the regimental color of the unit to which most men 
belonged, headed detachments. 

You could not discover an American ''type." 
Most of the men were clean shaven, finely-built and 
American straight of limb. But all the races which 
type make the nation such a delightful and in 

some ways such a complex race were there. There 
were men of Irish ancestry, and there were men 
whose fathers, in the long time ago, came from Ger- 
many. Today, of course, they are Americans, and 
Americans of the most undoubted loyalty. But the 
faces of the men in the great procession were very 
different and did not approximate to any given type, 
and it was deeply interesting to see the varying char- 
acteristics that have built up today's America. 

With precise, determined step the troops swung 
along Piccadilly to Hyde Park Corner and curled 
around Grosvenor-gardens. And still the men 
shouted hoarsely and still little children waved their 
small flags, and still women cried "God bless you" 
and "Good luck." 

Outside the American embassy in Grosvenor-gar- 
dens the crowd was enormous. But no halt was 
made, and there were no speeches. The American 
ambassador, Mr. Page, took the salute as his coun- 
trymen passed, and standing by him were Mrs. 
Page, Admiral Sims and members of the embassy 
staff. From the Maple Leaf Club close by, the Can- 
adians showed what a Canadian cheer can be. 

Then the Americans went onward to Buckingham 
Palace to march by the King of a people as free as 
those of the great republic, and to hear the greatest 
cheer ever raised in London. 

Crowds stretched far down the Mall. People 
climbed on to the Victoria Memorial and the police 
crowds had orders not to interfere. Most of the 
cheering crowd could see little but the rifle points 
glittering in the sunlight. But they could hear the 



60 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAB 

tread of the soldiers, and no band ever made sweeter 
music for them. These cheering men and women 
could not see the King, who with Queen Mary 
stood in the courtyard, but they knew His Majesty 
was there. The most colorless life had its moment 
of radiant glory when the first Americans passed 
the King. The Guard of Honor had played the 
national anthem, and after the sudden silence cheers 
passed like a wave from the palace to the Admiralty 
Arch. In field-marshal's uniform, the King saluted 
each section as it passed, and those who were near 
him saw the pride in his eye, and the smiles as he 
talked, a little later, to Mr. Lloyd-George. 

In the Green Park the troops were allowed a brief 
rest, and after they had joined in the general cheers 
for His Majesty they had some refreshment and 
made their way to Waterloo Station. 

And here they came to the final stage in the jour- 
ney so far as the public was concerned, and perhaps 
that is why there was an emotion such as is rare 
in England. For Waterloo to so many of us is a 
living place of mystery and pain, and of the most 
joyful home-comings. But we have had to hide our 
emotions, and there had been no bands and no great 
cheers to help our soldiers. From all the stations 
whence men have. set off to the wars it has been in 
silence and in darkness. 

But yesterday it was splendidly different. The 
bands were there, making great music with the 
American national airs. The station was crammed 
with people. Before the soldiers entrained, women 
from the station canteen showered cigarettes on 
them, and hurried along with trays of fruit. 

Although no one was allowed on the departure 
platform, hundreds of people bought penny tickets, 
at the which gave them admission to the platform 
station on the other side of the train, and then be- 



AMERICAN TEOOPS IN LONDON 61 

gan the most 'charming friendliness between the sol- 
diers and civilians. 

It was not at all in order, of course, but people 
darted on to the railway line for the remembered 
joy of shaking hands with an American soldier, and 
the men themselves clambered down and, like school 
boys, held out their hands and distributed visiting 
cards. They read quaintly to English eyes : "Cor- 
poral Geo. R. Barnaske, Company D., U. S. A., with 
Expeditionary Forces, in care of Adjutant General." 
This is the inscription on one card, and there was a 
little flag in the corner. 

How everyone shouted for one of these cards. 
Small boys were dispatched on to the line and told 
to bring some back, and there was frantic cheering 
when the men themselves clambered down and cried : 

"Write to us, won't you— and we will answer 
sure." 

So hundreds of these military visiting cards were 
pocketed, and some of the friendships begun so curi- 
ously on a railway line will perhaps develop as the 
days pass by. 

Before one of the trains steamed away the massed 
bands played the national anthem. Not a train 
cheers for moved from the station. All was very, 
England very quiet. Then the Americans them- 
selves raised three tremendous cheers for England, 
and the crowds in the stations responded, and so 
the train went out, and so the men went on to their 
business of making war. 

Thank you, America. Your men, so fine, so 
friendly, so soldierly— they have given us the en- 
couragement we all of us needed, and in the detach- 
ments you have sent over you have given us not 
only allies in the military sense, but friends as dear 
to us as our own brothers. Together we shall "see 
it through." 



CHAPTER XIII 
THE WORK OF THE RED CROSS 

Our women are caring for the soldiers at the front 
today and they are working at home. Besides con- 
serving food, they are knitting warm clothes 
and are making bandages and surgical sup- 
plies for the doctors and nurses at the hos- 
pitals behind the lines. Most of this work is done 
under the direction of the Red Cross. There are 
many branches of the Red Cross Service. When our 
brave men are wounded and fall on the battlefield 
they provide ambulances to go out and bring them 
to the hospitals. They have a saying in the trenches, 
"If a man falls wounded and the Red Cross gets 
hold of him he cannot die." However that may be 
we know that much suffering is prevented and many 
lives are saved by means of the Red Cross. 

Through its organization women are in service. 
It is only in the last hundred years that women were 
Florence allowed in military hospitals. During 
nightingale the Crimean War, when France, Eng- 
land and Turkey fought against Russia, men lay ill 
and wounded in the hospitals in mud and filth, with 
no soap or towels and only coarse food. Florence 
Nightingale came to their aid. She was the daugh- 
ter of a wealthy English family, who for many years 
had been devoting her time to the study of nursing 
in English hospitals. She came with a group of 
other women to the suffering and dying men. She 
saw that the sufferers were bathed and well fed. 
Letters were written home for them. They were 
carefully nursed and many of them recovered. The 

62 



THE WORK OF THE RED CROSS 63 

soldiers of Crimea revered the name of Florence 
Nightingale. Money raised in her name was given 
by her to found a nurse's training school for girls 
in London, which still exists. 

Inspired by ner service, Henri Dunant of Switzer- 
land published a book which advocated preparing 
for war in times of peace, so that the suffering of 
the Crimean War might never be repeated. He said 
that it would take many people working together to 
accomplish anything. So he called a group of men 
together at Geneva, Switzerland. Representatives 
came from fourteen different nations. This council 
resulted in 1864 in an international treaty which or- 
ganized the Red Cross. 

Each nation pledged itself to work with the other 
countries in war times in caring for all sick and 
wounded alike, no matter of what nationality. They 
also pledged themselves in time of war never to 
fire on a nurse or a doctor or an ambulance that bore 
the sign of the Red Cross. This pledge also Ger- 
many looked upon as a " scrap of paper." The 
Swiss national banner is a white cross on a red field. 
Because Switzerland originated the idea the organi- 
zation adopted these colors reversed. 

At the time of the Civil War in this country we 
knew nothing of the Red Cross, but Dorothea Dix, 
clara "Mother Bickerdyke," and Clara Barton 
barton were three noble women who worked inces- 
santly to relieve suffering. Clara Barton was given 
a pass to go behind the lines, where she worked for 
Northern and Southern wounded alike. 

When the war was over she went to Europe for a 
rest and learned of the Red Cross Society. France 
and Germany were then at war and she saw doctors 
and nurses of both sides working together caring 
for the wounded. She was greatly delighted with 
this band of trained men and women who were work- 
ing to relieve suffering. Their watchwords, 



64 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

4 'Humanity" and " Neutrality, ' ' appealed to her. 
She began her efforts to secure for the United States 
the benefits of membership with the Red Cross. 

This was accomplished in 1882 and Clara Barton 
became the first president of the American Red 
American Cross. We were not at War, but Miss Bar- 
red cross ton found plenty to do. Her organization 
has taken care of suffering wherever accident or 
fire or flood has brought large numbers to want. A 
horrible forest fire in Michigan burned hundreds of 
homes. The Red Cross collected clothes, food and 
money for the sufferers. The Mississippi flood of 
1882 destroyed millions of acres of cotton and sugar. 
The Red Cross provided seed for planting anew and 
furnished other relief for the homeless people. At 
the time of the Johnstown flood the Red Cross iden- 
tified the dead, fed the hungry, and provided clothes 
and homes for the sick and homeless. At the time 
of" the San Francisco earthquake they fed three 
hundred thousand people in the bread lines. Since 
1905 there have been nearly a hundred calls for 
the Red Cross in the United States, because of 
disaster. Every Christmas time we are urged to 
buy Red Cross stamps, which provide money to pre- 
vent tuberculosis. 

Even before our country declared war, our Red 
Cross had spent millions of dollars in equipping 
peace ambulances, nurses, surgeons and sending 
service hospital supplies to the front. As soon 
as we entered the war they took upon themselves the 
work of looking after the needy families of those 
who had gone to the front. Three times we have 
had an opportunity to subscribe to the Red Cross 
campaign, and millions of dollars have been col- 
lected. Five million people have offered to do Red 
Cross work and to January, 1918, over forty mil- 
lions of dollars had been expended. A hundred mil- 
lion dollar war fund was over-subscribed. 



THE WOEK OF THE KED CEOSS 65 

The aims of the Red Cross war council are 
three: (1) To be ready to care for our soldiers and 
red cross sailors on duty wherever and whenever 
aims care may be needed. (2) To shorten the 

war by strengthening the morale of soldiers by 
looking after their interests at home. (3) To lay 
foundations for an enduring peace by practical re- 
lief and sympathy to all the peoples of the Allies. 

At home the Red Cross is taking such measures 
as are necessary for the protection of health and 
welfare of our soldiers in camp. It guides the work 
of the women in the making of knitted clothing and 
surgical supplies. It cares for dependent families 
of men in military and naval service. 

The Junior Red Cross was recently organized to 
give the 22,000,000 school children of the United 
States an active share in war work. The work is 
carried on entirely as a part of school duty. Work- 
ing under supervision, boys and girls knit socks and 
other garments and make many of the simpler 
dressings and relief supplies. • 

A Medical Advisory Committee, including our 
foremost physicians and sanitary experts, has been 
appointed and, under the Red Cross, is hard at work 
at home and abroad. 

The "War Council has sent to Europe five separate 
commissions so that we may be familiar with all 
learning the the needs of our Allies. Commis- 
needs sions have been sent to France, Rus- 

sia, Roumania, Serbia, and Italy. Representatives 
have gone to England and a special department was 
created for Belgium. Major Murphy, the head of 
the Commission, is in France and is a member of 
General Pershing's staff, so that he may be in close 
touch with the army. 

The Red Cross works among the civilians, caring 
for and educating destitute children. They care for 
mutilated soldiers as well as sick and disabled ones. 



66 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

In the devastated countries of France and Belgium 
they supply tools, household goods, food, and 
clothing. 

France has suffered beyond description. While 
our army was getting to France it was necessary to 
aiding the strengthen the courage of the French 
French soldiers and people. Needy sick and 

wounded soldiers were cared for in hospitals. Dis- 
pensaries were provided and canteens established. 
The chief work was in taking care of the French 
orphans. Many children, ranging from babies to 
those eight years old, were .sent from the towns on 
the war front to cities far away, to save them from 
gas and shells. 

The greatest need of France is aid for the French 
refugees. They have fled before the approach of 
the German army, having no money or food. In 
many cities whole families live in a single room. 
Disease develops, and relief is demanded. Fifty 
thousand yards of flannel and great quantities of 
condensed milk, flour, dried vegetables, corn beef, 
rice, beans, sugar, shoes, blankets and sheeting have 
been sent from the United States for Bed Cross 
relief work. Nearly eight hundred and fifty thou- 
sand refugees, embracing all classes except able- 
bodied men, have received help. When the war is 
over they will need more assistance to go back to 
their homes and begin life, over. 

The sick and disabled men discharged from the 
French army are many. The wounded receive a 
pension, but the invalided soldiers do not. Of these 
three hundred thousand men, perhaps one-half are 
tubercular, and their earning power is slight. When 
they are discharged from the army, separation 
allowances to their wives and children cease. When 
their uniforms are gone they have no money even 
with which to buy clothes. 

The Red Cross offers temporary relief in many 



THE WOEK OF THE EED CEOSS 67 

cases. The mutilated soldiers are furnished with 
artificial legs and the blind are re-educated to earn 
their living in a new way. In every way possible 
the Red Cross helps. To prevent the spread of 
tuberculosis from these returned soldiers is a great 
problem. ' Five hundred thousand cases have de- 
veloped since the beginning of the war. Sanitoria 
and hospitals have been constructed. Four beauti- 
ful chateaux of France equipped for use have been 
turned over to the Red Cross. 

When the American troops started to France the 
Red Cross saw that every man was given a comfort 
kit containing heavy socks, handkerchiefs, wash 
cloth and soap, pencil and writing paper, material 
for smokes, games, buttons, and other small articles. 
The Red Cross saw to it that no American soldier 
was forgotten at Christmas time, in his first winter 
in France. 

When our soldiers land in France they are 
taken first to large reception camps on the coast, 
conducted by the Red Cross. Along the route fol- 
lowed by the troops, the organization has infirm- 
aries and rest stations in charge of an American 
trained nurse with a man to help her. Each in- 
firmary has a dozen or more beds with drugs and 
other necessities. Those seriously sick are cared 
for in French hospitals. When our men reach their 
French base, the Red Cross acts as a friendly 
agency to provide rest and recreation. 

When the survivors of the sunken transport 
"Antilles" reached port they were met by a Red 
seeving Cross representative with money. They 
oue boys had lost everything they had, and some 
were dressed only in their night clothes. The Red 
Cross attended to notifying their families of their 
safety, and provided them with what they lacked. 
Great care was given to visiting the wounded in the 
hospitals. 



68 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

The Canteen service feeds men everywhere. It 
furnishes food to men in railroad stations and sees 
that they have a bath, and when time permits, a 
rest. Near the firing line are established the field 
canteens. These are in or near the second lines, 
where men going to and from the trenches can be 
refreshed. Each station keeps about one hundred 
and twenty-five gallons of hot drinks at the boiling 
point. Sometimes four thousand men are served in 
a day. Many of these stations are in charge of 
women. Women in canteen service must be between 
thirty and fifty years of age and of robust health, 
for it is a very hard life. 

The Red Cross supplies the field or base hospitals 
with ether, surgical dressings and instruments. Ten 
portable ice-making plants were set up in France 
for supplying base hospitals. 

More than half the eight hundred and sixty-four 
persons handling the work in France are working 
behind the without salary or even living ex- 
lines penses from the Red Cross. Promi- 

nent American business men, experts, and women 
are working without salary. The other half are 
paid by their former employers or from private 
subscriptions. At the front they establish and keep 
up canteens, rest houses and recreation huts to sup- 
ply American soldiers and our Allies with all the 
comforts the army authorities approve. They dis- 
tribute supplementary hospital equipment for the 
Allied armies and maintain emergency hospitals 
whenever the need arises. Thus along with the ter- 
rible carnage and destruction of war goes this 
beautiful work of healing and service. 



CHAPTER XIV 
FROM AN AMBULANCE DRIVER 

Dear Father: 

"All we do is to go up for attacks. Night before 
last, we came out from a perfect hell— by far the 
the april 'is worst we have ever gotten. We were 

DRIVE ^ on d uty three dayg and three nightg> 

1 put in forty-eight hours with but five hours sleep. 
During that time, we lost one of the twenty members 
of our section, a noble fellow who was killed, three 
were wounded and fifteen of our twenty cars were 
hit by shells. The steady bombardment was awful. 
We were at what was about the most violently con- 
tested point. Picked French and English troops 
fought like demons against the best Boche troops— 
including their Prussian guards. 

It is not possible to describe such bravery, pluck, 
and wonderful morale. Never a whimper nor a 
complaint and the poor fellows were blown to pieces 
as I have never seen before. Two regiments we 
worked with had been through two Verdun offen- 
sives, and they said that this was undoubtedly the 
most bloody affair in the history of the world. 

At one time, the Boche advanced into the lower 
edge of a village, about as large as the park at home. 
counter The French dropped back to a hill behind 
attacks with the Boche 400 yards away and 
crossed the machine gun fire, which made it pos- 
sible to leave the cellar used as a first aid station. 
We four Americans and seven French stretcher 
bearers, who were with us, destroyed our papers, 
divided our bread and then lined up, expecting to 

69 



70 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

be taken prisoners. The Boche, however, were 
checked and driven back. All day and all night 
counter attacks took place. I thank God we got out 
as well as we did. 

The fields on both sides of the roads to the posts 
were filled with English and French batteries doing 
mighty fine work. Everywhere were the reserve 
line trenches and machine gun posts with the troops 
in them day and night. Those lines acted as a sec- 
ond trench. We passed them and went so far up 
that the Boche not only saw our ambulances but 
fired upon them with machine guns. By doing this, 
we gained considerable time in getting the wounded 
just as they came from the attacking regiments. No 
battle could be a more bloody affair. One side or 
the other always making either an attack or a 
counter attack. The wounded could not be brought 
back from the front line except after dark, conse- 
quently, many lay out all day with most frightful 
wounds. Men went mad under the bombardment. 

As long as I live I will take off my hat to every 
French soldier. Most especially do I admire the 
valiant pluck and courage of the Moroccans. One 
French afternoon they not only stopped the Prus- 
sian guards but went through them. At one time, 
some English troops on our sector went thirty-six 
hours without an ambulance section. The shell fire 
was so terrific along the roads that their drivers 
simply would not go out, and there the poor chaps 
lay fairly crying to be taken back. 

I remember one night we waited for a barrage 
to decrease slightly so we could go out to the post. 
When we arrived, the two cellars were filled with 
wounded and many lay out in the street. The priest 
' who was aiding the wounded cried when he saw us, 
saying, ' ' I knew you boys would come. ' ' No human 
being could have resisted doing all in his power to 
get them out. I would have been glad to work twice 



FROM AN AMBULANCE DRIVER 71 

eighty-four hours without rest if it had been neces- 
sary to reach those brave fellows who were so 
desperately wounded. 

One night, the night before we arrived, a certain 
village had hardly been touched. Twenty-four 
appalling hours later, that village consisted of 
sight piles of brick where walls had been. All 

in one night the place burned. One house along tlie 
road was filled with grenades that kept exploding 
for hours. Some of the sights I have seen lately 
would have broken my heart, if I had not become 
somewhat hardened to them by my experiences dur- 
ing the past year. Death and the individual man 
are nothing at all. So often I wonder how long 
these mad people can continue. The more one sees 
of war, the more it is hated." 



Part II. Geography of the War 

CHAPTER XV 
THE STORY OF ALSACE-LORRAINE* 

The battle-ground of the West Front has em- 
braced the territory of Alsace-Lorraine. One cause 
of the bitterness and suspicion in Europe for many 
years has been Germany's seizure of Alsace and 
Lorraine. We have only to read the story of these 
provinces to realize what the German yoke might 
mean to us. 

When Germany defeated the French in 1871, they 
forced the French to cede to them Alsace and Lor- 
in early raine, which lie along the borderland be- 
times tween the two nations, on the south bank 
of the Rhine River. In early times they were within 
the Roman Empire, which extended to the Rhine. 
Beyond the river then were the barbarous tribes 
of the Teutons. When Rome fell, the Teutons spread 
south of the Rhine and became the ruling class in 
these provinces. When modern nations began to 
arise, Alsace-Lorraine belonged first to France, and 
later to different states of Germany. 

The provinces later fell into the lap of France 
again, but through no conquest on her part. Alsace 
was given to France as a reward for her aid to 
Germany during the Thirty Years War. Lorraine 
was, for a time, in possession of Stanislaus, the 
father-in-law of Louis XV, ruler of France. When 
Stanislaus died, Louis inherited Lorraine, which 
then became a part of France. When these 

•Some teachers will prefer to read Chapter XXV at this point. 

73 



74 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

provinces came into the possession of France, the 
people living in them used the German language 
mainly. 

In 1789, when the French people set about getting 
rid of their king and obtaining self-rule, the Alsace- 
drawnto Lorrainers came to admire the French 
France very much. Many of them joined the 
French army and fought for the republic under 
Napoleon. It was during these years that the 
French national hymn, the Marseillaise, was first 
sung, at a dinner given by the French Mayor of 
Strassburg in Alsace. The Alsace-Lorrainers con- 
tinued to take part in all French affairs and to fight 
for French liberty. Without any pressure from 
France, the people came to use more and more the 
French language and customs. Since 1815, the 
Alsace-Lorrainers have been largely a French peo- 
ple. This process of cementing the provinces to 
France was continued until 1871, when France was 
forced to give them over to Germany. 

The deputies of Alsace-Lorraine at this time pro- 
tested against this cruel separation from what they 
torn from considered their mother country, and 
motherland they expressed the feelings of the 
greater part of the people in the provinces, but to 
no avail. After three years, 1874, the Germans al- 
lowed deputies from Alsace-Lorraine to take seats 
in the Eeichstag in Berlin. When they first ap- 
peared in the Eeichstag, these deputies again 
protested against the annexation of their land by 
Germany. But the other members of the Reich- 
stag only laughed and jeered at this protest. Some 
of the leading Socialists of Germany at that time 
also protested against the annexation, and were im- 
prisoned for their boldness. Von Moltke, Ger- 
many's leading general in the war of 1871, declared 
shortly after the war that it would require no less 



THE STOEY OF ALSACE-LOREAINE 75 

than fifty years to wean the heart of her lost 
provinces from France. 

There were several reasons why Germany wished 
to get control of Alsace and Lorraine. One of these 
basis of ger- was because the provinces contained 
man industry an immense amount of coal, iron and 
other minerals. These have meant a great deal to 
German prosperity. By annexing them, Bismarck 
made his country much richer. The Germans wrung 
from France an indemnity of a billion dollars in 
gold, but what was far more valuable to Germany 
was the title to Alsace-Lorraine. Her rich mines of 
coal and iron made it possible for Germany to pro- 
duce the high grade steel for her great industries. 
New plants were established to make steel for Ger- 
man manufactures and for the great Krupp guns. 

Within thirty years Germany surpassed England, 
first in the production of pig iron, then in the matter 
of steel, and then in the chemical industries, all 
based on the iron and coal of Lorraine. The Ger- 
mans obtained such great riches from these two 
provinces that their conquest went to their heads. 
They felt that war was profitable and would always 
bring them great returns. Therefore, they laid their 
plans for larger conquests. 

But, besides .the prosperity and wealth the 
provinces brought to the Fatherland, there was an- 
military other reason for taking them. Count von 
defense Moltke persuaded Bismarck that the pos- 
session of Alsace-Lorraine was necessary for Ger- 
many's defense against France in future wars. The 
Vosges Mountains, he said, would be a far more 
satisfactory boundary line from a military stand- 
point than the Ehine River. Ever since then the 
Germans have claimed that the Vosges Mountains 
form the natural boundary line between France and 
Germany, and that the line must remain there. This 



76 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

military reason was doubtless the principal one for 
the taking over of these provinces. 

There was one further reasou. That was, that in 
ancient days, the people of Alsace-Lorraine had 
German spoken German, and the Germans 
language claimed that the provinces had been 
taken from them in the first place, and that these 
brothers of theirs were merely being brought back 
to the Fatherland. Many of the liberty-loving Swiss 
speak German, too, but Germany has not yet forced 
them back into the Prussian-ruled Fatherland. But 
of all the reasons for Germany's seizing these two 
provinces, the leading one was that they needed 
them for purposes of defense against the French, 
although since that time the mineral wealth of the 
provinces outweighs all other reasons for holding on 
to the last ditch. 

When Germany signed the Treaty of Frankfort 
in 1871, taking over Alsace-Lorraine, she agreed to 
emigration allow all the inhabitants of the prov- 
limited inces who wished to leave the country, 

to do so, providing they went before October 1st, 
1872. By that date, sixty thousand of the Alsace- 
Lorrainers had left the home country, all going to 
France, or to the French colony of Algiers. Shortly 
after the date limit arrived, a hundred thousand 
others tried to leave the country, but they were not 
allowed to go, because they had not gone before the 
prescribed date. However, ever since 1871, the emi- 
gration of a few families at a time has continued all 
along, making in all from five to twelve thousand 
each year. It is claimed by the French that fully 
half a million people emigrated from the provinces 
between 1871 and 1910. 

Many of the Alsace-Lorrainers who emigrated, 
did so because they did not wish their sons to be 
going to forced into the Germany army and be liable 
trance later to kill their relatives and friends in 



THE STORY OF ALSACE-LORRAINE 77 

France. Those that were not allowed to emigrate 
after 1872, claimed the right of foreigners, that is, 
their freedom from military service; but the Ger- 
man government refused to grant this right and the 
consequence was that many of the young men of the 
provinces, who wished to pursue a military career, 
went to France. In the German army, they had 
very little chance for promotion as officers. It is 
said that in 1914 there were only three Alsatian offi- 
cers in the German army, while there were thirty 
generals from this province in the French army. In 
the dozen years immediately preceding this war, 
twenty thousand boys fled from Alsace-Lorraine to 
enlist in the French army. 

As Germany was anxious to make these provinces 
purely Teutonic, they sent into Alsace-Lorraine 
German many colonists as emigrants. These 
colonists, colonists were people from all the walks 
of life. By 1914, out of the 1,800,000 inhabitants, 
four hundred thousand were said to be emigrants 
from various parts of Germany. These immigrants 
did the very things that would make them unpopular 
with the native inhabitants. They boasted of Ger- 
man greatness and German virtues, and they boldly 
paraded all their Teutonic customs. This naturally 
forced the Alsace-Lorrainers to cling the more tena- 
ciously to the French ways of life. 

When Germany took over Alsace-Lorraine it was 
thought best not to annex them to any one of the 
German states, because this might create jealousy 
in Germany. Bismarck thought it a wiser plan to 
make Alsace-Lorraine a Crown territory, called 
Reichsland, which was to be directly under the con- 
trol of the empire and the Kaiser. That would make 
all the states in Germany equally anxious to retain 
the annexation, and prevent their ever returning to 
France. 

So, for the forty years previous to 1911, Alsace- 



78 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

Lorraine was merely a conquered territory, with 
no self- little to say in its own affairs and none 
rule i n those of Germany. It was ruled by the 
Emperor, by the chancellor appointed by him and 
by the German House of Lords. In the provinces 
with his seat at Strassburg, sat the governor- 
general, who represented the Kaiser and ruled for 
him. It is true that the Germans had allowed the 
Alsace-Lorrainers to have representatives in the 
Eeichstag, the lower house of the German govern- 
ment, but this house has very little power. So, 
while different members have been sent from 
Alsace-Lorraine to the Eeichstag, they have had no 
influence, because that body has had so little influ- 
ence in the government of Germany. Until 1911, 
therefore, Alsace-Lorraine was not represented in 
the real governing power of Germany. 

From the beginning there had been a growing 
number of people in Alsace-Lorraine who demanded 
the right to rule their own affairs. At last, in 1911, 
Alsace-Lorraine was given a constitution and al- 
lowed to send three delegates to the Bundesrath, the 
German house of lords; but these were not to be 
elected by the people. On the contrary, they were 
appointed by the governor-general, who was an in- 
strument of the Kaiser. This arrangement did not 
satisfy the Alsace-Lorrainers, because it did not 
give them a real representation. 

By this new constitution, the local government of 
Alsace-Lorraine was placed in the hands of a legis- 
constitution lature, but the upper house of this 
a blind legislature was controlled by the em- 

peror, who appointed one-half of its members and 
could therefore control it by preventing the passage 
of any laws that did not please His Majesty. More- 
over, the Alsace-Lorrainers had still no power to 
elect their representatives in the Bundesrath. Up 






THE STOEY OF ALSACE-LORRAINE 79 

to the beginning of this war therefore the lost 
provinces had failed to obtain their freedom. 

The Germans have done little to conciliate the 
people of Alsace-Lorraine. They have looked upon 
feench the provinces as conquered lands, and 
forbidden have treated the people in the domineer- 
ing way that would create more bitterness. A great 
many annoying laws were forced upon the Alsace- 
Lorrainers to bring about the use of German cus- 
toms and the German language. Only the German 
language can be used in the schools and churches, 
but French is still widely spoken in the homes and 
on the streets. Newspapers are printed with both 
German and French on the same page. In the shops 
one is waited on with equal courtesy, whether he 
speaks French or German. In the theaters French 
is allowed to be used only once in two weeks, but 
French plays are regularly presented as often as 
allowed. 

The street signs are all in German, but the people 
who refer to them do so generally in French. The 
German government ordered that no new French 
business signs could be put up over the stores. The 
old French signs, no matter how dilapidated, are 
still kept over many shops. If the owners should 
try to paint the signs, that would be the same as 
putting up a new sign, and it would have to be 
painted in German. The business people, in many 
cases, speak German in their place of business, but 
when they reach home there is no 'German word 
heard. In their homes, and in private places, the 
Alsace-Lorrainers still speak their native French. 

There are many petty and annoying rules in the 
provinces. For asking the orchestra to play the 
Marseillaise, or for whistling it, people have been 
expelled from the country. When the French 
veterans of 1870 get together to rejoice over old 
times, their meetings are dispersed and their guns 



80 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

taken from them on the ground that the guns are 
being held without a license. Those Alsace-Lor- 
rainers who left the provinces in 1871 are allowed 
to visit the old home only three weeks in the year. 
If when they come back they neglect to secure the 
required police certificate, they are driven out at 
once. Those who come back on business trips are 
allowed to see their clients at the railroad stations 
only. They are not permitted to enter the towns. 

Parents are not allowed to send their childern to 
foreign schools without a permit from the govern- 
desire for ment, and this is difficult to obtain. 

French tongue If they send their children to such 
schools without the government's permission, the 
parents are liable to fine and imprisonment. In this 
way the German government is trying to prevent 
the younger generation from learning French; but 
these harsh rules only make the desire keener and 
the determination firmer to acquire that language. 

French newspapers of a certain kind may be 
brought into Alsace-Lorraine, provided they have 
agreed to omit all reference to Alsace-Lorraine. 
This is Germany's plan to quiet all discussion of 
this troublesome question among the people. But 
those who live along the border of France drive 
across into French territory, buy the prohibited 
French papers, and hide them under their clothing 
as they go back across the line. The Germans have 
levied a high tariff on many French goods across 
the border. 

Young men who leave Alsace-Lorraine to avoid 
army service are not allowed to return until they 
are forty-five. If they do, and are discovered, they 
are heavily fined. The consequence is, that unless 
the parents of these young men have ample means 
to travel in France, they may never live to see their 
sons again. Even if they are able to travel, they 



THE STORY OF ALSACE-LORRAINE 81 

must get the permission of the German government 
before they are allowed to cross the border. 

During the army maneuvers in the fall of the year, 
the Alsace-Lorrainers are compelled to lodge and 
feed as many soldiers as Germany asks them to sup- 
port. The German government also employs many 
spies to watch the Alsace-Lorrainers and report 
those who are favorable towards France. "When 
any are discovered who favor France, they are made 
to suffer for it. 

At a certain large locomotive works near Strass- 
burg, which supplied locomotives to the railroads 
persecuting thereabouts, one of the directors of 
frenchmen the company was a lover of France, 
and made no attempt to conceal the fact. Suddenly 
one day the company was notified that unless they 
discharged this man the company would secure no 
more orders from the government, and of course 
they had to give him up. These annoying rules and 
petty persecutions explain why the Prussians are 
hated in the lost provinces and indicate why Ger- 
many is not loved by her colonies. 

At a certain town named Zabern in Alsace, there 
was in 1913 a German barracks where portions of 
zabebn the German army were held and trained. 
affair Here there grew up at that time much ill 
feeling against the Prussians. One of the young 
Prussian officers insulted the Alsatians and showed 
his contempt for them. When they heard about his 
remarks, the people, especially the young boys, re- 
turned the insult when they met him on the street. 
The feeling became more intense until finally the 
Prussian soldiers dispersed a crowd and arrested 
thirty people illegally. Among them were judges 
and other local officers. They were kept over night 
in a coal bin. 

This insult with the illegal acts of the army 
stirred up the Alsatians against the Prussians, and 



82 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

there was deep bitterness. The German govern- 
ment did little to quiet the feeling in spite of the 
fact that the Reichstag made protest against the 
acts of the soldiers. Even during this excitement 
the insulting lieutenant struck a lame shoemaker in 
the face with his saber, while he was being held 
fast by other soldiers, and inflicted a severe wound. 
The whole affair showed that the civil popula- 
tion had no rights against the Prussian military 
aemy officers ; that when the people are abused 

above law and their laws broken by the Prussians, 
the Kaiser and the German government favor the 
military officers. Thus, this Zabern affair caused a 
growth of bitterness that was not allayed when the 
war began. The whole affair proved that Germany 
was ruled by the war lords instead of by the voice 
of the people. 

Notwithstanding the tyranny of the government, 
Alsace-Lorraine, because of its steel and coal, has 
become a very important center of the empire. The 
population has increased by 300,000. Canals have 
been dug and railways built. The cities have sani- 
tary provisions of the most modern type, and Ger- 
man schools have been established. Many of these 
advantages, however, would have come to the 
provinces had they remained in the possession of 
France. This progress came in great part because 
Germany's prosperity was based upon the iron and 
coal mined here. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE SCHEME OF THE BAGDAD RAILWAY* 

By 1890 Germany had become a manufacturing 
and commercial nation. German trade had begun 
to penetrate into all quarters of the world. Her 
population had also increased tremendously. But 
as she had no foreign possessions suitable for 
colonization, her surplus population was obliged to 
migrate to foreign lands, where they in time ceased 
to be German. The result was that the Fatherland 
was not building up an overseas empire. Her trade 
too was almost entirely with other nations and their 
colonies. 

Not content with being the leading nation on the 
continent of Europe, Germany planned to become a 
building world empire. Great Britain had colonized 
a fleet the best portions of the world, and there 
was little chance for Germany except by force of 
arms. Germany, therefore, began building a great 
fleet, and the Kaiser declared that Germany's future 
lay upon the water. No attempt was made to con- 
ceal the fact that this fleet was to be used against 
England. 

Great Britain, whose empire depended upon a 
superior navy, twice suggested to Germany that 
they agree to limit the new warships to a certain 
number each year, because it was becoming a great 
tax burden upon both countries. But Germany re- 
fused and even increased her shipbuilding program. 
Both nations pushed their plans madly without re- 
gard to cost; but England had so much the start 

•See World War, Chapter 2. 

83 



THE SCHEME OF THE BAGDAD KAILWAY 85 

that Germany could not equal her on the sea though 
she kept adding to her navy. 

At the same time Germany was planning and 
scheming to seize upon a great continental empire 
extending through Europe and well into Asia. By 
universal military service Germany had trained her 
entire male population for army life and had built 
up the greatest army and fighting organization ever 
known. With this she meant to seize as much of 
Europe and Asia as she wanted. England's empire 
and fleet would fall to her later. 

For many years the ruling classes of Germany 
have been planning and plotting to seize for them- 
mittel- selves the best portions of the world, be- 
europa cause they have believed themselves su- 
perior to all other peoples and therefore destined to 
rule. In their dreams they saw the German Empire, 
beginning at the Baltic and the North Sea and 
extending through Austria-Hungary and the Bal- 
kans, Turkey, Asia Minor, and Mesopotamia, down 
to the Persian Gulf. The Germans called the em- 
pire of their dreams "Mittel-Europa." It was a 
vision of empire similar to that of Rome in her 
balmiest days, an empire of 160,000,000 people 
under German control. Over this magnificent realm 
the Kaiser would rule, a successor of the Caesars. 

But this was only the beginning of their dream of 
empire, for, after this first step, they thought Eng- 
land could easily be crushed and her empire and 
fleet seized. Africa, Asia, Australia, and, finally, 
the Americas would easily fall before Germany's 
growing power. Thus the world was to be ruled by 
Germany and all nations would surrender and take 
up the German language and German "Kultur." 
The most difficult step in this grand march was the 
first step, which Germany plotted to take before 
the world awoke to her towering ambition. 

The Mittel-Europa Empire was to be built upon 



86 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

and held together by the Rhine-Danube rivers and 
bagdad the Bagdad Railway. When completed 
railway the railway was to be a continuous 
European-Asiatic system, beginning at Hamburg 
and extending through Berlin, Vienna, Constan- 
tinople, Asia Minor, and along the Tigris River val- 
ley to the Persian Gulf. It was to be one of the 
greatest railway systems in the world. 

Germany is now a small country, not so large as 
the State of Texas, but with a population of seventy 
millions. Her crowded numbers live largely in 
cities and support themselves by manufacturing 
products to sell to the world. It is only by well- 
organized industries and a splendid foreign trade 
for German goods that her people can feed them- 
selves and prosper. 

The German government has done everything in 
its power to aid the people to win foreign trade for 
building up their products. It has made good har- 
commerce bors out of poor ones and created a 
system of inland waterways and railroads, all care- 
fully controlled by the government. The railroads 
and canals are operated to favor German travel and 
German goods. Freight rates are adjusted so as 
to enable a German merchant or shipper to sell at a 
lower price than foreigners can sell. 

All travel and shipping of goods from Germany 
is done over German routes and in German ships. 
The government makes all rules and regulations, so 
that all the money paid for the production and carry- 
ing of goods to foreign countries shall go to German 
firms. The German post office, for example, will 
carry mail to the United States for two cents a letter, 
provided it is carried on a German ship ; otherwise 
five cents is the rate for a letter. This is one of the 
many ways that Germany uses to build up her 
shipping power. 

The great trade artery of Europe is the Rhine 



THE SCHEME OF THE BAGDAD RAILWAY 87 

River, and Germany guards it as the foundation of 
the rhine her strong position in Europe and in 
valley the trade of nations. Armies can be 
moved back and forth upon the Rhine quickly and 
easily, and it is so navigable that the inland cities 
along its banks have been converted into seaports. 
Great barges make transportation easy and cheap. 
In some years there are more than fifty million tons 
of merchandise carried upon the Rhine, and this is 
equal to one-seventh of all that is carried on the 
railways in the empire. In the harbors lie great 
fleets of German steamers ready to sail to almost 
every known part of the world and to do everything 
they can to help build up the German traffic. The 
German ships bring back fuel for the furnaces, grain 
for the mills, wool, cotton and silk for the looms, 
wood for the lathes, and even food for the workers. 

During the last thirty years her foreign commerce 
has increased two hundred and fifty per cent; so 
that Germany is now second only to Great Britain 
in commerce. In this way Germany has kept her 
people at home and given them occupation. 

There have arisen in Germany great industrial 
classes that have become very powerful. The big 
industrial industrial magnates like the Krupps, 
classes and the great bank institutions, exer- 

cise a great deal of power in Germany. The great 
captains of German industry had a vision of em- 
pire such as would give a still broader field for 
German trade and industry and commerce. They 
worked hand in hand with the powerful German 
banks, which were to have branches throughout 
these wide regions. The captains of German in- 
dustry were probably as insistent as any other class 
upon the conquest of Serbia in order to push Ger- 
man claims into Turkey and Asia Minor, to connect 
up the great Middle Europe empire. 

The German people were interested in this great 



88 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

project, because of the outlet it offered for trade 
workers and positions for their educated men, 
interested as well as for the migration of their 
crowded population into lands where the Germans 
would not lose connection with the mother country. 
The working classes saw in this scheme well-paid 
employment, not only at home, but of inviting oppor- 
tunities in these new territories. It was an opening 
vision like that which England enjoys in South 
Africa, India and her other colonies ; and which 
France enjoys in Morocco and Algiers, but far mor0 
promising. 

The Germans began building this railroad system 
on the Asiatic side of the Dardanelles. The main 
line to the Persian Gulf was to be 1,700 miles in 
length. There were to be branch lines to important 
Mediterranean ports, and it connected with other 
lines running south through Palestine, which ended 
on the outskirts of the desert, dangerously close to 
The Suez Canal and Egypt. Branch lines ran east- 
ward to Persia, which was under British and Rus- 
sian control. 

But the most menacing thing of all was that the 
main artery ran from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf, 
main where a German naval base was to be built 
line and a harbor for the German fleet. This 
would be connected directly with Germany by rail, 
and would enable Germany to threaten India, 
Australia, East Africa and British interests in 
China and the Pacific Ocean. The railway was to 
have been opened for traffic in 1917. 

Thus the Bagdad Railway was a drive at the very 
heart of the British Empire. It struck the Suez 
Canal and British control in the Mediterranean, and 
menaced two centuries of British Empire building. 
It meant the ultimate control of Turkey with her 
twenty million people and all western Asia, as well 
as the Balkan states. 



THE SCHEME OF THE BAGDAD RAILWAY 89 

The Bagdad Railway would bring to Germany 
immense opportunities for overseas trade, commerce 
pan- and industries along with the control of 

Germany this vast territory. Mesopotamia and 
the Balkans are the richest undeveloped portions of 
the earth. By means of the railway Germany would 
be able to control the industrial life of all these 
countries. If Mittel-Europa could be realized it 
would make Germany so powerful that no nation or 
group of nations could withstand her drive for world 
control. Pan-Germany is the name given to this 
colossal world empire which is the star of German 
ambition. 

The first step in this drive by Germany was taken 
in 1888, when they obtained from Turkey permission 
to build railways to Asia Minor. Ten years later, 
when the Kaiser visited Constantinople, he obtained 
a concession from Turkey for the Bagdad Railway 
project, which was to reach to the Persian Gulf. It 
was to be the bridge from Hamburg to the Orient. 

For building the railway Germany was to have 
certain concessions. She was to have great land 
grip on grants on both sides of the railway through- 
turkey out its length, similar to the grants given 
by the American government to our Pacific railways 
just after the Civil War. Germany was to furnish 
the money, and build and operate the railway, but 
Turkey was to guarantee the interest on all money 
invested in it. If the railway should not prove 
profitable, or if Turkey should fail to meet her pay- 
ment of interest, then Germany would step in and 
take control of the government of Turkey until the 
money was paid. In this way Germany expected 
eventually to assume control of the Turkish empire. 

The land grants on either side of the railway 
amounted to 12,600 square miles. Thus upwards of 
100,000 acres were transferred to Germany for the 
raising of cotton and wheat which would help to free 



90 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

Germany from dependence upon the outside world. 
Cotton, which would relieve her from dependence 
on United States and England, can be raised on the 
land of Asia Minor; and Germany was doubtless 
distributing seed and training the people how to 
grow cotton here. 

The Tigris-Euphrates valley is the finest wheat 
land in the world when it is irrigated. Only irriga- 
seizing points tion is needed to bring back a 
of advantage civilization in the Tigris Valley 
similar to that which prevailed in ancient times, 
when twelve millions of people subsisted on the 
products of this great valley. There were conces- 
sions for mines, as Asia Minor is rich in minerals ; 
for oil, which Germany needs badly now; for the 
building of docks, harbors, warehouses, and for ex- 
clusive privileges of other kinds. Germany already 
has extended her banks into many of these regions 
and is getting the finances in her control and under- 
mining Turkish banks, just as she has done in 
Eoumania. 

It is very clear that in order to carry out this 
colossal plan of the Bagdad Railway, Germany 
needed the friendship and the actual control of 
Turkey. That is the reason why Turkey was 
brought to Germany's side in the beginning of this 
war. Turkey and Asia Minor mean more to the 
financial and commercial classes of Germany than 
any other portion of the world, because they offer 
a market for the surplus wealth of Germany and 
for her surplus products. This country is one of the 
greatest possible markets in the world, and it is the 
only one left unappropriated by the other powers. 
Therefore, Germany bent all her energies toward 
getting control of it. 

The Rhine-Danube river system is everything to 
the Mittel-Europa of Germany, for it is the base of 






THE SCHEME OF THE BAGDAD EAILWAY 91 

rhine-danube a gigantic program of canal con- 
waterway struction. The Germans have taken 
up a scheme of connecting the Danube with all the 
different rivers of Germany, with the Rhine and 
the Oder and the Vistula. By a vast network of 
canals she plans to use the Danube as the great 
backbone of water transportation through Mittel- 
Europa. This in connection with the Berlin-Bagdad 
Railway would make Germany supreme in the mat- 
ter of transportation throughout Central Europe. 

Such a system of canals, together with the low 
cost of transportation afforded by them, would make 
it profitable for the Germans to pay high wages to 
their own workmen, and yet at the same time bring 
about such a reduction of net prices in every line 
of industry as to force German products upon the 
whole world by their sheer cheapness. This would 
bring about the economic ruin of the Allies, and so 
exhaust them that they could not pay their huge 
war debts. It would bring about their subjection to 
Berlin in all matters economic as well as political. 
Besides, there is not a country in the world which 
could escape the clutches of Germany on account of 
this economic condition. 

The entire Pan-German plan hinges upon Serbia. 
Without Serbia the Pan-Germany of the Kaiser is 
Serbia impossible, for without Serbia it is im- 

the hinge possible to have a German controlled 
railway from Hamburg to Constantinople and be- 
yond, because the railroad runs through Belgrade 
and for many miles through the land of Serbia. 
Moreover, without Serbia Germany cannot control 
the Danube. 

Germany, then, depends upon retaining Serbia at 
all hazards at the close of the war. She would be 
willing to give up many other conquered districts, 
if only she is permitted to hold Serbia, and thus 
make complete her control of the Danube River and 



92 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

Hamburg-Bagdad Railway, and all that this means 
to her. 

Knowing this, Germany has been eager to de- 
stroy Serbia as a nation as completely as possible. 
massacring Serbia is said to be one great grave- 
A nation yard. Her population has been butch- 
ered by the Bulgarians with the approval of Ger- 
many, and Serbia is utterly ruined. The Bulgarians, 
Austrians and Germans have taken everything, and 
massacred a large part of the population, with rne 
hope of bringing in colonies of their own people. 
The plan is, that even if Serbia is given up, there 
will then be enough Germans, Austrians, and Bul- 
garians in Serbia, so that after a short time this 
country will 'pass into Teutonic hands. 

France has loaned billions of dollars to Turkey 
and the Balkans, and her interests here would be 
threatened. France has always been the favored 
money lender among these countries. Her loans to 
Turkey alone amount to four hundred million dol- 
lars, four times that loaned by Germany. 

France and Russia were very close allies, and the 
French people have loaned millions of dollars to 
France and Russia. The Bagdad Railway would 
Russia drive a wedge between these nations. 

It would also end the century-long ambition of Rus- 
sia for control of the Dardanelles. The French 
bankers and railroad builders were ambitious to 
control Syria, just as Russia was ambitious that her 
Cossacks should control northern Asia Minor, and 
secure a Russian port upon the Mediterranean. 

Russia can only finance her industries and pay 
interest on her loans, by the export of her wheat and 
oil, and in winter she can reach the seas only through 
waterways under control of other powers, for the 
Siberian Railway is too long to be a very effective 
route. Should Germany control the Dardanelles as 
she does the Baltic, Russia would be practically cut 



THE SCHEME OF THE BAGDAD RAILWAY 93 

off and left a mere vassal to Germany. Germany 
could dictate trade and customs and tariffs, as she 
has done with weaker nations. She could dictate 
the internal developments of Russia by controlling 
her export trade. Future Russia is dependent upon 
an outlet to warm water seas, and the free and un- 
impeded right to buy and sell where she wishes. 
Therefore, Russia and France have consistently 
worked hand-in-hand with England in trying to pre- 
vent the completion of the Bagdad Railway. 

The ruling classes of England were greatly op- 
posed to the German plan, for it menaced the British 
threat at Empire. The Bagdad Railway would 
England make it possible to place German and 
Turkish soldiers alongside the Suez Canal and 
Egypt in a third of the time that English soldiers 
could be brought by sea. It would cut at Suez, the 
chief water route that holds the British Empire 
together. Moreover, the German terminus on the 
Persian Gulf would be a naval base from which the 
German fleet could strike quickly at British pos- 
sessions in the Far East, and at the same time be in 
close touch with Berlin. Its realization would mean 
England's downfall. 

The American people are likewise opposed to the 
Bagdad Railway scheme because the Germans plan 
America's to make it the basis of conquering Eng- 
position land and then using the captured British 
fleet to bring America under the sway of Germany. 
America has always welcomed peaceful German im- 
migrants, but when the War Lords plan to force 
German "kultur" upon the two Americas at the 
point of a bayonet we naturally resist with all our 
power. 

A railway is needed from Constantinople to the 
Persian Gulf, and it will doubtless be built; but 
we are determined that Germany will not be per- 
mitted to make it the basis of world dominion. 






CHAPTER XVII 
BRITAIN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN 

Nature seems to have fashioned the British Isles 
as a dwelling place for a great commercial nation. 
They are situated at the cross roads of the leading 
ocean lines of world traffic which gives them a great 
advantage in trade. The fact that they are west 
of Europe and east of North America, the chief 
commercial continents, is also much in their favor in 
trade matters. England is, in short, the center of 
the land hemisphere of the earth. 

As bays and gulfs enable ships to go far inland 
to get their cargoes, any country, having an indented 
coastline has great advantage for cheap water 
transportation. The greater the length of coastline 
of a country the better. An island empire, there- 
fore, always has superior advantage. 

England is so deeply indented that no part of it 
is more than seventy-five miles from the sea, while 
British Scotland has the most rambling coast line 
ports of any country in the world. Ireland is not 
so deeply indented, but yet has many excellent har- 
bors. The United Kingdom and Ireland contain 
119 seaports, of which 80, even at low tide, are open 
to vessels drawing as much as 14 feet of water. At 
average tide they will admit vessels requiring much 
greater depths. Practically all of these harbors 
have been developed for effective use. 

Not only are the British Isles a fitting dwelling 
place for a great commercial nation, but the English 
people have had the tact and cleverness to build up 
and hold together a great overseas empire. Canada, 

♦See World War, Chapter 7. 

94 



BEITAIN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN 95 

South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India and 
hundreds of islands the world over are happy and 
prosperous under the British flag on which the sun 
never sets. 

England has built up this world-wide empire not 
by harsh military rule such as Germany displays, 
empire but by giving to the people of her 

self-ruled dominions the right to rule themselves 
in so far as they prove fit to do so. Canada, South 
Africa, Australia and New Zealand are all prac- 
tically independent of the mother country. They 
even levy tariffs on goods shipped to them from 
England. And the colonies have proved their loy- 
alty in this war by rushing armies and munitions 
to the battle fronts. It is this world empire that 
has aided Great Britain to become the leading com- 
mercial nation. 

One source of England's great strength lies in 
her control of the seas. This does not mean that 
sea the warships are giving her this control, 

control but the unarmed liner following its regu- 
lar route, or the slow speed tramps seen perhaps 
first at the London docks and a few weeks later at 
some far tropic port. The tonnage of ships flying 
the British flag is nearly twenty million, the United 
States comes next with less than eight million, then 
Germany with less than four and a half million. A 
great percentage of the American tonnage, however, 
is coastwise trade, while that of England is mainly 
overseas. 

The very nature of England's trade demands this 
great merchant fleet, for her highways are those of 
the seas. The greatest port of tonnage is London, 
the second is Hong Kong and the third is Liverpool. 
While the commerce of England before the war was 
not increasing as rapidly as that of Germany and 
the United States, still it was far in the lead and 
still growing. To British ports come vessels from 



96 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

every nation and to every seaport in the world are 
sent British-owned vessels on trading missions. 

Millions of tons of staples are bought by England 
in the country of their origin, loaded on British 
London ships, and delivered to her customers 
market round the world, without touching at 
British ports. In the warehouses along the Thames 
and elsewhere are gathered the supplies of the 
world. Here you may see both the common and the 
unusual articles of commerce. The ivory of India 
and Africa are first brought here. The furs of the 
world are sold by auction in the London fur mar- 
ket. Mahogany logs lie on the London docks await- 
ing trans-shipment to other countries that are much 
nearer to their native growth than Britain. This 
English Island is the commercial heart of the world, 
and the slowing or quickening of its pulse is re- 
flected in the most distant nations of the earth. 

The vast extent of British sea trade is shown by 
the number of ship arrivals. In normal times an 
average of 214 ships arrive at United Kingdom 
ports from foreign waters every day in the year. In 
addition to those, there are 780 arrivals from home 
ports every day in the year of ships in the coast- 
wise trade. 

British ships had, before the war, a greater total 
carrying power than those of all the other countries 
of the world put together. The merchant ships of 
Great Britain numbered nearly 12,000, of which over 
4,000 were engaged in sailing between British and 
foreign ports. Few countries of the world are so 
dependent on the importation of foodstuffs as the 
United Kingdom. In peace times London is only 
three weeks from starvation. Probably 90 per cent 
of all the food for Britain's 45 million people must 
be brought in normal times from overseas. This 
makes it clear why she needs the strongest navy in 



BRITAIN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN 97 

the world to protect her shipping. Any threat at 
her navy makes all England tremble. 

More than three-fourths of the people of the 
British Isles live in cities and are engaged like those 
of Germany in manufacturing goods for foreign 
trade. No nation can advance far in manufacturing 
without abundance of iron and coal. Great Britain 
is rich in coal deposits of excellent quality. The 
mines are near and convenient to ocean ports which 
give access to cheap water carriage to all parts of 
the world. 

In the history of British commerce, coal plays an 
all-important part. The foreign trade of Great 
England's Britain in the past has been based in 
coal riches no small measure on her coal exports. 
It formed the bulk of the British outgoing cargoes 
prior to the war. Britain exported in 1913 about 
97,000,000 tons of goods of all kinds, of which about 
76,000,000 tons was coal. By taking on cargoes of 
coal for overseas the British shippers were able to 
bring back at low cost foods and raw materials, 
such as cotton, wool and timber which were needed 
by the British industries. By filling the ships both 
ways, freight rates were lowered and this was an 
advantage in favor of the British industries, as it 
enabled them to produce and transport their goods 
economically and thus to gain foreign markets. 

Prior to the war Great Britain furnished nearly 
all the bunker coal for the ships that carry the 
bunker world's commerce. Great Britain, being the 
coal foremost maritime nation, had established 
coaling stations along all ocean lines of commerce. 
She had coaling stations at Gibraltar, Malta, Port 
Said, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai. These 
are out few of the British coaling stations which 
encircle the globe. By means of these she held con- 
trol of the greater part of the world's supply of 
bunker coal. Ships of all nations, including those 



98 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

of Germany, were supplied on the same terms as 
British ships. 

Sixty-five per cent of the Island of Great Britain 
contains coal and iron ore, while Germany has only 
one-third as much. Five-sevenths of Germany's 
iron comes from Lorraine, which explains why she 
will refuse to the bitter end to return this province 
to France. Her vast iron industry has been built 
up with Lorraine iron. Without it she could not 
have carried on the war for six months. 

The bulk of exports of both England and Ger- 
many are manufactured goods, such as textiles and 
Britain's iron and steel. To these Germany adds 
food supply chemicals and England, coal. Both 
countries import food and raw materials. England 
has been depending much upon North America for 
her food, but in recent years she has been endeavor- 
ing to develop food supplies and raw materials in 
her colonies, especially those in the Far East. Nine- 
tenths of the food supply of the British Isles must 
come from overseas, and a great deal of it in peace 
times is obtained from Egypt, India, Australia and 
other eastern colonies. Not only food, but England 's 
whole life and prosperity, depends upon her trade 
with her colonies and especially her colonies in the 
Orient, which are reached through the Mediterranean 
and the Suez Canal. England's short water-route 
to the East through the Mediterranean is therefore 
vital to her safety. The Bagdad Railway to the 
Persian Gulf would give Germany the great advan- 
tage in trade with these far eastern nations, and to 
that extent it would strangle British commerce. 

One of the chief causes of bitterness among Euro- 
pean nations these many years, though little has 
mediterranean been said about it openly, is the 
passage control of the Mediterranean Sea. 

It is the great water communication extending more 
than a thousand miles from Gibraltar towards the 



BEITAIN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN 99 

east and reaching into the heart of Europe and to 
the border of Asia. The Mediterranean is the only 
outlet for the commerce of the countries surround- 
ing it, of Italy, Greece, and the Balkans, of Egypt 
and northern Africa; and it is the only outlet in 
cold weather for the great quantities of Russian 
grain and other exports that come by way of the 
Black Sea. Whoever controls the Mediterranean 
and the Dardanelles has firm grip upon the pros- 
perity of all these nations. 

Moreover the Mediterranean is the only direct 
water route from Europe to Asia and the Indies. 
This waterway, therefore, is the backbone of the 
British Empire. England has kept control of the 
Mediterranean by holding the western entrance at 
Gibraltar and the Suez Canal to the east, just as 
Germany is supreme in the Baltic. England also 
holds Cyprus in the northeast corner of the Mediter- 
ranean and Malta near the center. But Great Britain 
has never abused other nations with her sea control. 

The control of this main route of trade and com- 
merce from Europe to the Orient has now been chal- 
lenged by Germany. Germany's drive to the east 
and her determination to build and manage the Bag- 
dad Railway is a drive at the heart of the British 
Empire, because without control of the Mediter- 
ranean and the Suez Canal, England's empire, 
depending upon direct water communication, cannot 
be held together. 

England has billions invested in her colonies, in 
Egypt, East Africa, Australia, India and the Far 
East. At least six billion dollars have been placed 
here. This represents loans, investments in rail- 
ways, mines, and plantations and profitable enter- 
prises of all kinds. England has been the great 
money lender of the world. Her overseas loans 
alone amount to twenty billions of dollars. 

The financial and investing classes of England 



100 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

have been the ruling classes. They are mainly the 
investments old landed aristocracy, enriched by 
threatened ground rent, mines, tenements, and 
railways. This class controls the House of Lords 
and the Conservative Party in England, and has 
great influence with the foreign and diplomatic 
service as well. All the interests of these people 
were menaced by the German drive to the east. 

British shipping supremacy was threatened by the 
railway competition. England's shipping tonnage 
amounted, before the war, to twenty-one million 
gross tons, or about 40 percent of all the tonnage of 
the world. A great part of this is engaged in trade 
with the Far East. Two-thirds of the ships passing 
through the Suez Canal are of British registry. The 
Bagdad Railway threatens all this shipping profit, 
for it would substitute carriage by land for carriage 
by water, and the two billion dollars that England 
has invested in shipping might prove unprofitable. 

England has also been the world's clearing house. 
Lombard Street is the financial center of the world. 
The commerce of every country enters the ports of 
London for storage and trans-shipment to other 
parts of the world. The financial leadership of Eng- 
land is largely dependent upon her carriage of the 
world's commerce. A railroad passing through 
Europe to the Indian Ocean in German hands 
threatens the control in Lombard Street. 

England would perhaps lose control of the dis- 
tribution of the products of the world. British 
exports and imports, passing through the Mediter- 
ranean in 1916, amounted to $1,650,000,000, and this 
is carried almost wholly in British ships and 
financed through British banks by British merchants. 
The Bagdad Railway would permit Germany to 
place the product of her mills and factories in the 
Far East, as well as in the Balkans, in much less 



BRITAIN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN 101 

time, and possibly at less cost than they could be 
carried by sea. 

The great body of English workers are also 
vitally interested in the British Empire, for it af- 
fords a market for English goods and it is the manu- 
facture of these goods that gives occupation to the 
plain people of Great Britain. They, too, are 
opposed to Germany's Bagdad Railway. The con- 
trol of the Mediterranean, and with it Turkey and 
Western Asia, is the keystone of one empire and 
the dream of another. 



CHAPTER XVIII 
GERMANY'S ADVANTAGES IN THE WAR* 

The blockade of Germany has made some serious 
problems for her to overcome in the matter of food, 
German but in money matters it brought a differ- 
finance ent result. When Germany found herself 
blockaded, she was forced to find ways of keeping 
up her own resources and those of her allies. This 
meant great difficulty in the matter of securing food, 
clothing and raw materials for making munitions. 
But Germany turned all these problems to good 
account. If her exports are small, her imports are 
correspondingly small, and therefore she has to send 
very little money abroad. This is in her favor so 
far as money matters are concerned. 

The case is very different with France. That 
government, believing that England would keep the 
French seas free, placed enormous orders for 
interest food and munitions abroad, and did not 
rely so much on her home supply to fill the nation's 
needs. The result was that the direct imports soon 
exceeded her exports by a billion francs a month, 
and for the difference France must pay her gold to 
foreign countries. The time will come when France 
must pay twelve billion francs of interest a year to 
foreign countries with no returning advantage, be- 
cause her purchases of different products, such as 
munitions, were destroyed in use. Thus France is 
becoming poorer in gold every month of the war, 
while Germany is keeping hers at home. 

There are several reasons why the war has cost 
Germany far less than it has cost the Allies. In 

♦See World War, Chapter 5. 

102 



GERMANY'S ADVANTAGES IN THE WAR 103 

the first place, in order to produce an output of 
various kinds of guns and projectiles, Germany, 
looking forward to the conflict, had already built up 
machinery and worked out many war problems 
beforehand when her war experts had plenty of 
time. She had great factories and arsenals that 
were ready to produce in large quantities without 
any costly experiments or delays. 

On the other hand, in France and England, there 
was very little in the way of war materials ready 
experiments when the war broke out, and the situ- 
costly ation was still worse in Russia. It 

was necessary for these countries to set up quickly 
thousands of new plants, to equip them with ma- 
chinery brought from America at vast expense, and 
to work out hastily new kinds of cannon, projectiles, 
and all the rest. Haste, and the necessity of solving 
huge war problems in war times, caused many mis- 
takes. All this was paid for dearly. 

Then, too, the Germans had worked out the wage 
problem during their leisure days of peace, and when 
war came they were able to keep the wages stable, 
to prevent strikes and so to produce their war 
materials at a much lower cost than could the Allies. 
All that Germany had to do was to extend her very 
efficient industrial methods, which had been tested 
in peace times, and so she avoided those immense 
losses of every kind which were incurred by 
disturbed labor conditions among the Allies. 

Almost from the first the Germans have com- 
manded with the bayonet the labor of about two 
labor of million prisoners of war. In all the con- 
prisoners quered countries Germany forced the 
entire able-bodied population, both men and women, 
from the ages of sixteen to sixty, excepting women 
with young children, to set to work for Germany 
and help produce materials to keep up the terrific 
fighting. For all this vast amount of labor, Ger- 



104 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

many paid practically nothing, so that their war 
munitions and food for the army were costing them 
far less than that of the Allies, who had fewer 
prisoners to help them. 

The Allies paid high wages to their workers and 
when their supplies ran short, they had to pour out 
their gold to bring in more supplies from Asia, 
Africa, and America. A large part of the wages 
paid these foreign workmen left France and Eng- 
land for all time. It is to the advantage of every 
country to keep its gold at home, by selling more 
goods abroad than it buys and having the difference 
sent home in gold. 

Then there was the matter of coal and iron ore. 
In addition to their own mines the Germans imme- 
german diately seized the important coal and iron 
steel mines of France, Belgium and Poland. 
Therefore a large portion of their coal, ore, and 
other supplies cost them nearly nothing. Naturally, 
a German shell, made with French iron and Belgian 
coal, cost far less than a French shell made with 
American steel and English coal. As a result, the 
net price of the greater part of German munitions 
is much lower than that paid by the Allies. 

Then Germany had the advantage of a central 
position. She could move her supplies to the differ- 
central ent fronts more easily than the Allies. 
position By the conquest of the Danube, the Ger- 
mans could reach all their fronts easily. It is evi- 
dent that it cost less to send a shell from the Krupp 
factory to any part of the German front than it did 
to send an American shell to France, or a Japanese 
shell to the Polish front, or a French shell to Rou- 
mania, or an English shell to the army operating in 
Mesopotamia. An American shell has to be handled 
four times, once at the munition plant, once at the 
port of shipment, a third time at the French seaport 
and a fourth time at the front, while a German shell 



GERMANY'S ADVANTAGES IN THE WAR 105 

can be sent direct from factory to front without any 
intermediate handling. It is clear, also, that the cost 
of transporting a soldier to any one of the battle 
fronts was very much less for Germany than it was 
for the Allies to transport soldiers from Australia 
and America. 

Thus, it can be pointed out that Germany was 
carrying on the war much more economically than 
the Allies. It is perhaps fair to say, that if France 
spent 150,000,000 francs for war material, Germany 
for the same amount of material would spend no 
more than 100,000,000. If France spent 30,000,000 
francs, Germany would spent only 20,000,000 francs, 
and what was true of France was true to a greater 
extent of the other Allied nations. 

Germany obtained great quantities of supplies 
from the territories that she seized in France, Bel- 
gium, Serbia, Roumania and Russia. From these 
territories she enslaved 42,000,000 people, who fur- 
nished a vast amount of labor, which was cheap, 
because the enslaved were robbed in many ways and 
poorly fed. 

By reason of their advance into Belgium, Serbia 
and Roumania, the Germans took possession of vast 
stores of war materials, consisting of cannon, rifles, 
munitions, wagons, locomotives, cars, and thousands 
of miles of railway, which they made full use of at 
a very low cost. The Belgian railway system alone 
was worth a billion dollars. 

From all these conquered countries Germany ob- 
tained various kinds of foodstuffs. Everywhere, we 
robbing are told, they stole horses, cattle 

conquered lands and domestic animals, grain, po- 
tatoes and sugar, and food products of all kinds. 
This included the reserve supply of the countries 
that she had seized. The harvests were often taken 
in a large measure, and all of the productive land 



106 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

was put into cultivation by forced or enslaved 
people. 

In all these occupied regions, the Germans also 
took raw material, such as coal and iron ore, copper 
and petroleum and the like, including such metals 
as bronze, zinc, lead, copper and tin. These were 
also taken from private citizens. All local supplies 
on hand were appropriated. They also took textile 
fabrics, consisting of woolen and cotton cloth, and 
silk. From the cities of northern France alone the 
Germans are said to have captured 550,000,000 francs 
worth of wool. 

From this it is easy to see what an immense 
amount of plunder, amounting to billions of dollars, 
has been taken by Germany. Then, too, they seized 
upon hammers, motors, machinery, rolling mills, 
lathes, drills, electrical engines and the like, and 
these were transported into Germany. The total 
value of this stolen material in Belgium and north- 
ern France, which are among the richest industrial 
districts in the world, is beyond computation. 

In all these regions the Germans also imposed 
war taxes, called imposts. Belgium is staggering 
taxing the under an annual war tax of nearly 
conquered 500,000,000 francs. Bucharest, after it 
was conquered by the Germans, was forced to pay a 
levy amounting to nearly 2,000 francs per capita of 
the whole population. These are merely illustra- 
tions of the taxes that Germany has assessed upon 
all the subject people where her armies were in pos- 
session. In Poland, the German government printed 
billions in paper money and forced it upon the 
people. They were compelled to sell their products 
for this paper money, which amounted practically 
to confiscation. 

In September, 1916, the Germans seized nearly a 
billion francs from the National Bank of Belgium in 
Brussels. This was later taken to Germany. At 



GERMANY 'S ADVANTAGES IN THE WAR 107 

Noyon, France, the Germans broke open and pil- 
laged the safes and banks of private businesses 
before retiring from the town. The securities, 
jewels and silver plate at Noyon represented a valuv 
of about 18,000,000 francs. These are only incidents, 
but they illustrate what Germany has been doing 
throughout the conquered regions. The total 
plunder has mounted well up into the billions of 
dollars. 

Then Germany has bound her allies to her by 
forcing them to borrow money from her. She has 
German loaned billions to Austria, Bulgaria, and 
loans Turkey; and they in turn have spent this 
money in Germany for their war supplies. When 
the war is over these nations will, therefore, be so 
deeply indebted to Germany that they will be her 
vassals. Thus, by use of paper money, Germany 
has made her allies dependent, and at the very same 
time has obtained troops, foodstuffs, and raw mate- 
rials without which she could not have carried on 
the war. These obligations are already weighing 
so heavily upon Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and 
Turkey that they are in sore distress. They are so 
deeply in debt that no one of these countries can 
ever hope to pay it off, unless a victory of the Allies 
should remove from their shoulders that financial 
yoke of Berlin. 

The fo©d crisis in Germany Jed Berlin to proceed 
with great haste to get the use of the rich farming 
farming districts which the fortune of war put 
abroad within her grasp. Hundreds of experts, 
with thousands of agricultural implements, were 
sent to Roumania, Serbia and Asia Minor. There 
were two districts especially which were early given 
attention. In one, cotton growing was developed 
and in the other intensive cultivation of grain was 
in progress. By getting possession of these rich 
farming regions, Germany will bind these nations 



108 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

to her by starvation, if by no other way, because 
she will seek for herself the productive areas which 
ordinarily afford the food supply for the natives of 
these countries. 

Germany has gone forward with great speed dur- 
ing the war in binding this Mittel-Europa together. 
The factories for making war materials have been 
distributed through the whole territory, with the 
double object of making use of raw materials near 
their source of origin, thus avoiding useless trans- 
portation, and of shortening the distance necessary 
to send munitions to any threatened sector along the 
front. For this reason the Krupp firm, at the out- 
break of war, established a munitions factory, not 
only in Bavaria, but also in Bulgaria and Turkey. 

The railway system and the strategic automobile 
roads in the central European countries have de- 
transportation veloped very swiftly, especially in 
advantages the Balkans and in Turkey, where 
the need was very great. In fact, on every military 
front a railroad running parallel with that front 
was built, so that reinforcements might be sent to 
any point with a maximum speed. All these, taken 
as a whole, have raised Germany's natural strength 
to gigantic and powerful proportions. If the Kai- 
ser's armies were to withdraw from Russia, Poland, 
Belgium, and France, Germany would still include 
150,000,000 people in Mittel-Europa from which they 
could draw 30,000,000 soldiers. All this is possible 
through the carrying out of the Hamburg-Persian 
Gulf Railway. 

It is plain that if Germany were to succeed in 
splitting Europe in two, her trade advantages and 
Germany military pressure toward the east would 
in russia be irresistible. The countless German 
representatives which Berlin already maintains in 
the vast territory of Russia would find their work 
becoming easier every year, and Russia would break 



GEEMANY 'S ADVANTAGES IN THE WAR 109 

up permanently from the Baltic to the Pacific into 
a series of little German-ruled countries. This has 
been the plan of Germany and it is already fairly 
well carried out. Just now, there is nothing to pre- 
vent Germany's influence from becoming the con- 
trolling force in opening up the immense natural 
riches of Eussia, both Russia in Europe and Asiatic 
Eussia. 

If Germany can carry through this scheme, she 
will have another advantage. There are twenty- 
one billion francs from these different countries 
which are owed to France. The German plan is to 
have these different nations under her control give 
over these debts to her, and she will charge them up 
to France as part of the immense war indemnity 
which she thinks she should have. 

All of these plans, of course, depend upon Ger- 
many's winning the war. Now that the Pan-German 
French scheme has, for the time being at least, 
loans lost been accomplished, we must say that 
twenty-one billion francs of French money, at the 
lowest estimate, represented by French loans to 
Eussia, Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and 
Turkey have been virtually seized by Germany. 
This, taken along with the terrible losses of France 
during the four years of war, will almost ruin that 
country, unless a decisive victory of the Allies shall 
yet rob Germany of her spoils and guarantee to 
France that she shall have not only the money loaned 
to these other countries, but that she shall be paid 
a war indemnity by Germany. 

There are also serious disadvantages to fall on 
Germany's shoulders because of the war. She has 
German lost millions annually from foreign trade, 
losses she has lost hundreds of her splendid 
merchant ships, but above all, she has lost the good- 
will of the civilized world. Her prosperity rested 



110 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

on her foreign trade. She cannot sell her volume 
of manufactured goods to herself. World hatred 
will prevent Germany from regaining her trade 
supremacy for many years. This will bring hard- 
ship and poverty to the Fatherland. 



CHAPTER XIX 
THE WORLD'S COAL AND THE WAR 

The coal industry is one of the foundations of 
civilized life. Not only does mankind need millions 
of tons of coal to heat homes and dwellings, but 
other millions of tons are needed in the multitude 
of factories and in the public service plants through- 
out the world where electric power is produced. 
Wherever heat is used, coal is needed, except in the 
small ways where wood is used as fuel and where 
oil is abundant and cheap. 

In days of peace we were wont to look upon coal 
as one of the necessities, but our supply was suffi- 
new demands cient and we gave it very little 
for coal thought. Coal came to us then as a 

matter of course, but when war began these things 
were all changed. The warring countries had to 
have so much more coal for their fleets and factories 
and war munition plants that the world suddenly 
realized that it was short of fuel. 

The United States is the largest coal producing 
country in the world. It furnished before the war 
chief coal about thirty-eight percent of the world 's 
nations supply, while Great Britain afforded 
twenty-two percent and Germany twenty percent. 
These three were the chief coal countries ; following 
them, were Austria, France, Russia, Belgium, and 
Japan, all of which produced far lesser amounts. 

Of all the large countries, France's coal supply 
was hardest hit by the war. France was never able 
coal famine to supply sufficient domestic coal for 
in France her own requirements. While she pro- 

111 



112 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

duced before the war forty million tons, she was in 
need each year of sixty million tons. This shortage 
of twenty million tons was imported, mainly from 
Great Britain; a small amount came from Belgium 
and from Germany. 

When the war broke Germany seized the northern 
sections of France and took possession of sixty- 
eight percent of the coal supply of that country. 
In spite of everything that France could do to in- 
crease her supply, she was still short one-half of 
her normal need. During the war nearly all her 
imported coal came from England. In 1914 and 1915 
the fuel situation in France was not serious, but 
by the following year the demand for coal increased 
tremendously, both from the munition plants and 
private industries, and the mounting price of coal 
was alarming. The heavy loss of the northern coal 
mines, the increased demand, and the very high 
freight rate for imported fuel caused the price of 
coal at the mines to increase seven times over what 
it had been before the war. The result was great 
suffering on the part of the small consumers 
throughout the country of France. So great was 
the need that the government was forced to take 
over the coal supplies and to deal them out accord- 
ing to the needs of the people and of the different 
industries. 

The German coal industry had been well organ- 
ized for several years before the war began, but 
Germany's during the war the production of coal 
grab in Germany was wholly unequal to 

her ever-growing demands. However, by occupy- 
ing Belgium, she seized large coal mines, as well 
as those in Poland and in northern France, and 
these added millions of tons to her coal supply. 
She was therefore able to export small amounts of 
coal to Switzerland, Holland, and the Scandinavian 



THE WORLD COAL AND THE WAR 113 

countries in exchange for other supplies of which 
she was in serious need. 

In such neutral countries as ' Sweden, Norway, 
Denmark, Holland and Switzerland, the coal situa- 
neutrals tion became more and more difficult in the 
suffer course of the war. The countries are 
almost wholly dependent upon Great Britain and 
Germany for their supply, but neither of these coun- 
tries could furnish them with anything near enough. 
The manufacturing industries of these countries 
were seriously paralyzed. There was widespread 
suffering on account of the fuel shortage. It was 
only by very careful and earnest pleading for ex- 
changes that these countries were able to get even 
a limited fuel supply. 

In Sweden the fuel situation was so critical that 
the government took over all combustibles, includ- 
ing coal, coke, wood, and benzine. Coal and coke 
cards were introduced in Sweden, but even those 
who had cards could get only one-seventh of what 
they used before the war. Owing to the scarcity of 
coal, many railways and steamers were forced to 
burn wood. 

Russia, like France, lost some of her largest coal 
producing districts to Germany. The great coal 
Russian regions in Poland produced about seven 
imports million tons a year. Some of the Russian 
coal fields even reduced their output during the war 
so that they were producing less than half of what 
they should. British exports of coal into Russia 
went to the Baltic ports and the Black Sea, and the 
closing of these ports increased the coal shortage 
of Russia. Throughout the country oil, wood, and 
peat quite generally replaced coal. 

The Italian coal situation became acute as soon as 
that country entered the war. Formerly Italy got 
ITALY'S the greatest portion of her coal supply from 
plight Germany, but during the contest Great 



114 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

Britain was called upon to supply the bulk of Italy's 
coal, the imports of fuel amounting to about ten 
million tons a year. In 1916 the United States be- 
gan exporting coal to Italy, but high freight rates 
and a shortage of ships resulted in exorbitant fuel 
prices, and Italy was in great danger of suffering. 
In fact, her munition industries were forced to close 
for a time because of the shortage of coal. It has 
been said that this was one reason for the Italian 
defeat before the combined armies of Austria and 
Germany in the year 1917*. Prior to 1914 not much 
coal was produced in Italy, but in 1916 she operated 
one hundred and forty-eight coal mines, as against 
only fifty-nine the year before. A great deal of this, 
however, is of inferior quality. 

The coal situation in Canada during the war was 
very much like that of the United States. There 
Canada were difficulties of transportation, short- 
in want age of coal, and high prices in the chief 
centers. This was caused largely by the fact that 
the provinces of Canada have been depending upon 
the coal fields of Pennsylvania and Ohio for their 
supply. Notwithstanding the enormous fuel re- 
sources of Canada, over one-half of the coal she 
uses has been imported from the United States. 

Very little coal is produced in South or Central 
America. There are small fields in Chile, with a 
English coal IN limited annual production, but this 
south America is not sufficient to supply the needs 
of these countries. Coal fields have been discovered 
in Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil, but they have not 
been developed on a very large scale. In the past, 
most of the coal imported into South and Central 
American countries came from Great Britain. Eng- 
land's coal is of excellent quality, her shipping 
facilities are superior and well organized, and the 
freight rates low. All these advantages enabled 

♦See "World War," Chapter 24. 



THE WOELD COAL AND THE WAR 115 

England to control the coal exports to these 
countries. 

During the war the British exports to South 
Atlantic ports were greatly reduced on account of 
the shortage of ships. America has taken over the 
coal trade to South America. This promising be- 
ginning will in the course of time develop into a 
good export market for our coal. But at present 
the South American countries have a serious coal 
shortage. Many of their industries had to cease 
operation, and private homes were put to great dis- 
comfort. The governments of these countries. urged 
the people to use wood and oil for fuel purposes. 

So short was the stock of coal in Argentine that 
they made a law allowing the merchant steamers 
remedies for leaving Argentine ports for overseas 
south America destination to take away only as 
much coal as was needed to reach their first port of 
call in South America. The coal shortage in Argen- 
tine and Brazil caused the railroad companies of 
those countries to substitute fuel oil, which is im- 
ported from Mexico, on their locomotives. In 
Brazil the government has made large loans to the 
railroads and coal mining companies to stimulate 
the development of that country's resources. 

So great was the increased demand for coal the 
world over for war industries and merchant fleets 
causes of that everywhere there was a coal famine, 
shortage even in the United States, which now sup- 
plies nearly half of the world with coal. When the 
different countries entered the war, most of them 
allowed their miners to enlist, or else drafted them, 
leaving the coal mines short of expert labor. This 
mistake was made not only by Great Britain, but 
by Germany and by Canada. The consequence was 
a decided falling off in the coal production. It later 
became necessary to send thousands of enlisted 
miners back to the mines. 



116 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

In the United States, thousands of men left the 
coal mines for more lucrative employment in muni- 
wagesof tion factories, where the scale of wages 
miners was about one-fifth higher than it was in 
the coal fields. To prevent the miners from seeking 
employment elsewhere, it was necessary to raise 
their wages. This increase in wages took place in 
practically all of the leading countries in the world. 
Nevertheless, there was much unrest and numerous 
strikes among coal miners of Great Britain, the 
United States and Germany. 

On account of the shortage of cars to carry the 
coal away, many mines had to shut down for a time. 
Thus, there were fewer working days. Then, too, 
there was a heavy increase of accidents in the mines, 
due to inexperienced laborers that were being put to 
work, and to the fact that the management was less 
careful in order to speed up the production. 

But, although it was hard to get the coal, perhaps 
the most difficult problem to overcome was that of 
shortage transportation. The difficulties of car- 
of cars riage by rail and water increased so 
rapidly during the course of the war that the whole 
question of supplying the world with coal depended 
largely upon adequate shipping facilities. This 
break-down in transportation took place in all the 
countries, including Germany. 

It was the serious railroad congestion that caused 
the shortage of coal and the suffering in the United 
States in the winter of 1917-18. In many countries, 
including America, there was a limit placed on the 
number of passenger trains in order to relieve the 
freight congestion. Enormous quantities of coal re- 
mained at the mines for days because there was not 
enough rolling stock. 

One of the means of relieving the railroads of con- 
gestion was the scheme of zoning a country. Zone 



THE WORLD COAL AND THE WAR 117 

coal systems were put into operation in Great 
zones Britain, the United States and France. The 
countries were divided into areas or zones, and all 
factories and homes in these particular zones were 
forced to obtain their coal from the home zone. 
There was no shipping of coal from one zone to 
another. 

A further scheme for saving the railroads was to 
use canals and rivers for shipping coal. Thus canals 
water were used in America and Europe to a 
carriage greater extent than ever before. The 
people of these countries were urged to buy their 
coal during the summer and store it, so that there 
would be less danger of traffic congestion due to rush 
orders during the winter months. 

So critical was the coal situation in most countries 
of the world, that in most places the governments 
government were compelled to take over control 
control of the mines and direct the distribu- 

tion of coal. They took charge of wages and estab- 
lished a rate that would pacify the miners. In order 
to get the proper distribution of coal it was found 
necessary in many cases to take over also the con- 
trol of the railroads. This was new in America. 
But in most of the other countries the governments 
already had a greater or less control over their 
railroads. 

One of the best effects of the war upon the coal 
industry in the United States, Canada and Great 
Britain, was the powerful stimulus that it exercised 
on the by-products of the coke industry. The war 
forced the American people to realize their depend- 
ence on continental Europe and on Germany in par- 
ticular for the by-products obtained in distilling coal, 
especially for dye-stuffs. 

Up to a few years ago, the United States was the 
most backward of all great nations in the manufac- 



118 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

coal-tar ture of coal-tar products. Since 1915, all 
products this has changed. The old bee-hive oven 
for making coke was gradually supplanted by by- 
product ovens to such an extent that in three years 
the by-product coke production practically doubled. 
There was as much gained as in the previous twenty 
years. Thus there was a great force brought to 
bear on the chemical and manufacturing industries 
by the supply of such an abundance of raw material 
from the new coke plants. One of the most valuable 
of the results of the by-product industry is the con- 
servation of our coal supply. It is estimated that 
the ovens put into operation during the last three 
years will save annually to this country, fuel equiva- 
lent to five million tons of coal. 

In Great Britain the recovery of by-products is 
actively encouraged by the government, with a view 
to future extension of this industry on a large scale. 
The government has a fuel research board to in- 
vestigate the problem of replacing the greater pro- 
portion of raw coal now used by the substitution of 
various fuels obtained from coal after the by- 
products have been extracted. It now realizes that 
the by-products of coal are an invaluable source of 
wealth which has been shamefully neglected and 
which must be saved by patented recovery coke 
ovens. 

Prior to the war there was a steady increase of 
British foreign coal trade over that used at home, 
Britain but the war has completely changed 

loses trade this. Much more coal is now used in 
England while her shipments abroad have greatly 
decreased. There are two reasons for this change. 
The first is that Great Britain's war industries 
needed a great deal more coal at home, and the other, 
that the submarines had sunk so many ships that 
they could not spare vessels to carry the coal to 
other countries. Many British ships had to be 



THE WORLD COAL AND THE WAR 119 

called from other lines to keep the line between Eng- 
land and America supplied. America did not need 
coal and thus British coal exports were reduced 
nearly one-half from 1914 to 1918. 

The war has brought about great changes in sup- 
plying ships with coal. While Germany has lost a 
few coaling stations in the East, the Dutch have 
won new markets. In the Far East, Japan coal has 
supplanted British coal in many places, and on the 
entire northern Pacific coast of Asia, Japanese coal 
is now used. The chief Japanese coaling parts are 
Yokohoma and Nagasaki. All coal burning steamers 
crossing the northern Pacific Ocean now use Japan- 
ese coal. 

The war has also built up the American bunker 
coal trade on the Atlantic. The excellent coaling 
America's facilities at Panama and Colon give the 
gain United States complete control of one 

of the most important coal supply depots of the 
world trade. American bunker coal has supplanted 
British coal to a very large extent in the South 
American stations. 

Thus it is evident that English commerce which 
depended upon the coaling stations and bunker coal 
exports has been weakened during the war. It is a 
question as to what extent Great Britain may regain 
her overseas coal market after the war. The qual- 
ity of British coal is good, and this may decide in 
its favor. 

On the other hand, greatly increased production 
in America and a large fleet of newly built coal- 
carrying vessels may make this country the leading 
coal exporting country of the world. Another factor 
which will help put the United States in the lead in 
exporting coal, is that our facilities for loading are 
superior to that of any other country. 



CHAPTER XX 
GERMANY'S COPPER FAMINE 

In this war metals are playing a very important 
part, especially steel and copper. One can hardly 
say of copper, as one can of steel, that it furnishes 
the base for the whole mechanism of the war, but 
one can say that copper holds the second place. 

Every rifle cartridge-piece holds nearly half an 
ounce of the purest copper. Every bullet that flies 
copper from the machine guns has been enclosed in 
in war a casing of copper and zinc, gas tight and 
exact to a five-hundredth part of an inch. Every 
shell that is fired, whether shrapnel, high explosive 
or armor piercing, is encircled with a copper band 
to prevent contact between the shell and the gun 
barrel. In every fuse copper forms a part. It is 
also in gun metal. For field telephones nothing else 
will do, as anything that is operated by electricity 
must have its copper parts. 

Copper enters into our lives in a hundred different 
ways on which the average man never wastes a 
thought. It is used in every article of brass and of 
bronze that we use. Wherever there is electricity, 
copper is an essential element. There could be no 
electrification of railways without plenty of copper 
for cables and fittings. All the telegraph and tele- 
phone wires the world over are made of the red 
metal. It is the best conductor of electricity that has 
so far been found. Experiments have been made 
with aluminum, but as a conductor it has not been 
found either as economical or as lasting as copper. 

Then, to get some idea of its manifold uses and 

120 



GEEMANY'S COPPER FAMINE 121 

importance, one may think of boilers, stills, cook- 
usesof ing vessels, seamless pipes, nails, wire, 
copper etching and engraving plates, lightning rods 
and writing pens that are made of copper. If the 
supply of copper were to run short, we should be put 
to great loss and inconvenience because of it. 

Our forefathers would not have minded the pros- 
pect of having to get along without copper. A hun- 
dred years ago an output of less than 10,000 tons 
a year was sufficient for the needs of the whole 
world. Nowadays we consume over a million tons 
annually. 

For the first seventy years of this century the 
average annual consumption was no more than 
age of 32,000 tons. Then came the dawn of 

electricity the electrical age and with it the greatly 
increased demand for copper. From 32,000 tons a 
year the demand rose to 240,000 tons. During the 
first decade of the present century it increased still 
further, to about 700,000 tons a year. In the years 
since 1910 it has averaged over a million tons. 

The demand for copper was increased by the war, 
but was not caused by it. It has been growing 
continuously and at times amazingly during the past 
forty years, and it is based upon the industrial de- 
velopment with the new uses that have been found 
for electricity. The increased demand for copper 
would have gone on if there had not been war. The 
war has, however, greatly increased its production 
and at the same time has diverted a great deal of it 
from industrial to war uses and has drained the 
sources of supply, especially among our enemy 
countries. 

Before the war Germany was producing from her 
own mines an average of 26,000 tons of copper a 
Germany's year. In normal times she required 
shortage 250,000 tons of copper annually. Thus 

_ 



122 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

order to keep her industries going and to keep her 
exporting factories well supplied. Since the war be- 
gan it is difficult to see how Germany gets along 
with less than 125,000 tons of copper a year though 
she has restricted the domestic use of it. It is hardly 
probable that Germany obtains five times as 'much as 
she ever secured from her own mines. For 
the past four years, therefore, one of Germany's 
greatest problems has been to make good an annual 
shortage of at least one hundred thousand tons of 
copper. 

How far Germany has succeeded in obtaining the 
required amount of copper we do not know, but the 
reserves methods she has adopted in attempting 
of copper to supply it are now fairly familiar. 
First, she drew on her storehouses. There cannot 
be much doubt that, having planned the war, Ger- 
many had gathered together in advance great stores 
of copper. For five years before the outbreak, she 
was an unusually heavy buyer of the red metal. It 
has been learned that during that period she im- 
ported yearly 200,000 tons of copper more than she 
used in her manufacturing and export business. 
Just how much reserve copper she had on hand in 
August, 1914, one cannot tell, but it was unquestion- 
ably large enough to supply the demands of a brief 
campaign, which was all that Germany counted on. 

During the early years of the war Germany im- 
ported all the copper she could obtain from border- 
german copper ing neutral countries. In Septem- 
imports ber and October of 1913, Italy, Hol- 

land, Norway and Sweden imported something less 
than 5,500 tons of copper. In the same months of 
1914, after the war had started, they imported 
26,000 tons, and there can be little doubt that some 
part of it, and probably a great deal of it, went into 
Germany. The British blockade at that time was 
rather poorly enforced and there were a good many 



GERMANY'S COPPER FAMINE 123 

kinds of manufactured articles which had a large 
element of copper in them, even as much as 70 per- 
cent, that were not contraband. 

American copper dealers were anxious to furnish 
Germany with copper, and England did not want to 
injure America's trade, so that, doubtless, consider- 
able copper reached Germany from America. Even 
before the end of 1914, anyone who could land a ton 
of copper in any form across the German frontier 
could get for it eight hundred dollars paid down in 
gold. This was forty cents a pound and perhaps 
twice as much as copper was selling for in the open 
markets throughout the world. However, Ger- 
many's supply from neutral countries was at last 
practically cut off. 

Then the German government relied upon the 
patriotism and self-sacrifice of the Germans at home 
stripping and of their friends abroad, to supply 
the empire it with the copper that was needed. 
The government at once took steps to get hold of as 
much as possible of the copper in domestic and 
manufacturing use in Germany. In Hamburg alone 
in 1916 there were twenty-nine agents for collecting 
copper utensils. In January of that year the entire 
population of the German Empire was commanded 
to surrender all articles of copper, brass and nickel. 
Since then the empire and all the territory of her 
allies and the conquered regions have been gone 
over with a fine tooth comb in the search for the red 
metal. 

The fifty-four castles and residences that belong 
to the Kaiser, as well as the opera houses and thea- 
copper tres in which he was interested, have 

roofs taken all been ransacked for the precious 
metal. Even publishers had to give up their copper 
faced "blocks." The cable tramway at Kiel and 
many other towns were torn up for the copper to be 
gotten from them. The cathedral at Bremen was 



SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

stripped of the copper in its roofing. Church bells 
have been generally confiscated. Even cemeteries 
have been searched for crucifixes, crosses, and 
medallions that contained copper. The holy water 
basins in Belgian churches have been taken. 

Householders were urged at first, and then 
ordered, to hand over all copper saucepans, kettles, 
cauldrons, boilers, cooking utensils, door-knobs, bed- 
warmers, coffee machines, ash-trays, chandeliers and 
other copper ornaments that they had in their 
possession. 

Public statues in bronze or copper in great num- 
bers were melted down. Late in 1918 the German 
authorities turned their attention to public buildings 
with copper roofs. Among the scores of places 
stripped were the famous Brandenburg gate, Prince 
Albrecht's palace, a dozen churches and synagogues, 
and several museums. Some of the best known 
hotels, restaurants, and department stores and also 
private mansions were forced to give up their 
copper roofs. 

German agents have been active outside of the 
Fatherland on a busy search. They were found in 
buy queer faraway Persia buying copper and 
ornaments bronze guns. In neutral countries they 
bought up copper coins by the bushel. The very 
herdmen's huts in the Swiss hills and valleys were 
visited by German agents, looking for stray copper 
utensils. Prisoners in German camps were ordered 
when writing home, to ask the oddly innocent gift 
of a copper saucepan. 

All sorts of machinery were purchased by the 
German government in the adjoining neutral coun- 
tries, provided that one-third of the tool was made 
of copper. They even gave orders to the Scandi- 
navian countries for copper lamps and copper 
motor accessories, which were wanted only for the 
copper in them. Th« dealers in Denmark were 



GERMANY'S COPPER FAMINE 125 

startled one morning by an order for a million cop- 
per plates with the Kaiser's portrait engraved on 
each, which were to be shipped to Germany as works 
of art. 

Neutral countries which were neighbors of Ger- 
many very early in the war forbade the exportation 
smuggling of copper from their territory. Still 
copper in there was a great deal of smuggling 
going on all the time. Copper leaked over the fron- 
tiers under many disguises. The Danish tried to 
run forty tons of it as sugar, but the game was 
stopped when the bottom dropped out of one of the 
casks. Five Dutchmen were arrested on one occa- 
sion when it was found they were trying to smuggle 
copper under the cargo of a Ehine boat. Railroad 
cars coming from Sweden to Germany were found 
equipped with double sides for concealing copper. 

The British blockading squadrons found copper 
buried in orange boxes from Spain and in hollow 
logs, and candlesticks. They captured steamers 
whose names were written in copper letters a foot 
long. They found copper in bales of salt and wool, 
in bags of corn and linseed from South America. 
On one occasion they seized 200 packages of copper 
which weighed five pounds each which German sym- 
pathizers in the United States had sent by first class 
mail to their friends in the Fatherland as Christmas 
presents. 

When Germany sent her U-boats to the American 
shores in May, 1918, they were evidently instructed 
u-boat copper to bring back some copper for their 
victory urgent needs at home. After de- 

stroying a number of vessels the U-boats captured 
one that was bringing copper from South America, 
and the story is told that the U-boat took off seventy 
tons of pure copper from this boat. A few days 
later a submarine was seen 300 miles from our 
shores making its way to Europe. It made no at- 



126 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

tempt to disturb the ships that it passed, and it was 
surmised that this U-boat was carrying the seventy 
tons of red metal to Germany. 

All these desperate tricks tell their own story. 
Germany, the greatest copper importer of Europe, 
copper is now almost barren of the red metal. 

substitutes Early in the war German scientific 
men were set to devising substitutes for copper. As 
early as April, 1915, the Allies picked up on the 
battle field many German fuses made, not of copper, 
but of aluminum with a small copper wire. They 
were not very successful. The shells, being over 
light at the point, fell sidewise and failed to explode. 
By other means they may have had better results in 
the search for alloys to take the place of copper, but 
we shall have to wait until the end of the war before 
the success of their efforts is known. 

Meanwhile the capture of some Serbian copper 
mines relieved the situation. The Germans, after 
conquering Serbia, sent thither at once 6,000 miners 
with great publicity, so the German people might 
feel confident that the copper famine was over. But 
Serbia could not long relieve the situation, for it 
produced only 7,000 tons a year prior to the war, 
and the machinery with which this was done was 
largely destroyed before Germany got control of 
the mines. 

Before the war nine-tenths of Germany's supply 
of copper came from America. They had some 
America's copper coming from Australia, Bel- 
coppergrip gium, Japan, and Serbia and Great 
Britain. These are all now enemy countries. If the 
Allies, when the war is over, care to use this power- 
ful weapon, they have a monopoly of such raw mate- 
rials as copper and cotton upon which Germany has 
built up her export trade and her manufactures, 
and they can ruin the Fatherland by refusing to 
sell her these indispensable raw materials. 






GERMANY'S COPPER FAMINE 127 

The condition that prevails in Germany prevails 
also among her allies. The end of the war will find 
areas m Europe and Asia Minor inhabited by a 
hundred and fifty million people that are practically 
without a pound of copper. Germany has overrun 
and despoiled wide territories belonging to our 
Allies and taken from them all the copper available, 
so that there will be a copper famine throughout 
middle Europe when the war ends. 

Copper is found in a greater or less amount all 
over the world's surface. There are believed to be 
supplies of it both in the Arctic and Antarctic re- 
gions. It is being mined in central Africa, the 
United States, Spain, Chile, Australia, Japan, Rus- 
sia, England, Scotland and Wales. The countries 
are few where it does not appear in greater or lesser 
quantities. 

On the other hand, countries are fewer still where 
the beds easily accessible and rich enough to have 
world's any effect upon the world's supply. There 
supply are today some 335 copper mines working, 
but more than half of them produce less than 500 tons 
apiece yearly. Not far short of 60 percent of the 
total copper production of the world comes from the 
United States. This is one of the most important 
facts of the copper industry. A few big mines are 
responsible for about a third of the American out- 
put, and their known reserves, at the present rate, 
are not likely to last more than twenty years. After 
the war America will control the supply of the en- 
tire world unless there are fresh sources discovered 
elsewhere. 

All over the earth men are prospecting for new 
deposits and they are even opening mines that have 
prospecting been abandoned. Especially in 
for new mines G rea t Britain the hunt is on. The 
only country from which relief can be expected is 
Russia, which stands today, from the copper stand- 



128 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

point, just where the United States stood thirty- 
five years ago. Eussia possesses vast copper de- 
posits, needing only railways and capital for their 
development. Doubtless this development of Rus- 
sian copper mines will take place; but for the 
present Russia is an empire greatly distracted and 
unable to give a thought to her hidden mineral de- 
posits. It is too much to expect that her vast wealth 
of copper and other minerals can be had in time to 
save the world from a terrible shortage in copper 
when the war ends. 



CHAPTER XXI 
PLATINUM AND THE WAE 

One of the metals that is essential in making war 
is platinum, and there is a dangerous shortage in 
the platinum supply. Without it the manufacture 
of high explosives in great quantities for shells and 
for other purposes would be greatly hindered, if 
not altogether impossible. It is used in the manu- 
facture of nitric and sulphuric acid, which are the 
two great essentials in the making of high explo- 
sives, and there is nothing that can be substituted 
for it without great inconvenience. 

A platinum process plant for the manufacture of 
sulphuric acid can be built in six weeks. To build 
platinum a similar plant using a lead chamber 
in war process would require a year, and there 
is not sufficient lead to turn out the quantities of 
acid needed. Moreover, the acid made from plati- 
num is much superior. 

There are many war machines where platinum is 
the only metal that can be used in certain parts 
which are necessary to secure perfect control. Each 
telephone and telegraph instrument has platinum 
contacts. Every high grade magneto for airplane, 
automobile, motor-boat or gas engine has from two 
to six contacts of platinum. There are multitudes of 
contacts on the telephone switchboard and on relay 
instruments of both the telephone and telegraph 
lines that must be of platinum. It is required also 
in the new plants our government is constructing 
with such feverish haste to take nitrogen from the 
air for fertilizer and munitions. Platinum is also 

129 



130 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

much used for delicate surgical instruments and for 
X-ray tubes. 

Platinum was known to the ancient people of 
Ecuador who made ornaments of it. These have 
qualities of been found in excavations. It was 
platinum appreciated for the beauty of its color 
effect in combinations with gold. Until recent times 
platinum had not been much used because it is diffi- 
cult to melt or liquefy. Then, too, it cannot be dis- 
solved in the common acids as other metals can. 

One of the qualities of platinum that makes it so 
necessary in industrial work is its marvelous ductil- 
ity. Out of a single ounce of platinum it is possible 
to make an unbelievably slender wire that would 
reach about 1,800 miles. To draw out platinum into 
such an extremely fine wire, it is covered with a thin 
layer of gold, and drawn to a fine thread. Then 
it is covered again with gold and drawn to the thin- 
ness of the former one and the gold dissolved away. 
After repeating this process several times with short 
sections of the wire, it is still unbroken but almost 
invisible. 

With the great progress of industry in modern 
times platinum has come to be used in many 
branches of mechanical and chemical lines, because 
of these very unusual qualities. 

Before the war the platinum supply of the world 
was used in about equal amounts for dentistry, for 
platinum scientific purposes in chemistry and 
in peace manufacturing, and in jewelry. The war 
demand changed all this. So important is platinum 
in waging war and such a shortage existed that Con- 
gress early limited the use of it under license. 
Dentists and jewelers can now get but little, and for 
that the price is almost prohibitive. 

In the twenty-five years before 1900 platinum sold 
for six dollars an ounce. By 1900 the price had 
risen to fifteen dollars an ounce, or about three- 



PLATINUM AND THE WAR 131 

fourths that of gold. Just before the war it cost 
twice as much as gold. Now the price is over a 
hundred dollars an ounce, and but little is to be had 
at that price, as the most of it is required in war 
work„ If our government is forced to commandeer 
the platinum in jewelry, it is said that it will cost 
to collect it from $500 to $600 an ounce. 

For years the world has obtained nearly all its 
supply of this precious metal from the Ural Moun- 
tains, the continental divide between Russia and 
Siberia. Over 90 percent, and possibly 95 percent, 
of the world's output came from this source. The 
United States formerly obtained one-tenth of its 
supply from Colombia and the rest from Russia. 

The platinum mines of Russia were first discov- 
ered in 1875, when men were prospecting for gold. 
Russia's The mines extend for two hundred miles 
monopoly north and south, almost along the back- 
bone of the Ural Mountains. The placer mines here 
resemble gravel beds. The gravel deposits are com- 
paratively shallow, few of them being over thirty 
feet deep. The richest gravel is found on or near 
the bed rock. Gold and platinum nearly always 
occur together in these gravels. Platinum is now 
mined only from gravel. 

As platinum has no affinity for quick silver, the 
amalgamation process cannot be used in recovering 
crude it. It is caught by washing the gravel on 
methods the tables of dredges or in sluices, or in 
methods like the American gold pan. The Russians 
waste much of the precious metal by crude methods. 
Before the war, peasant miners — men, women and 
children — carried on this work in winter in bench 
gravel pits. They needed no pumping machinery 
and the windlass was their slow and hard method 
of hoisting the gravel. 

Obtaining platinum by dredging, such as was used 
to get the gold in the sands and soil of California, 



132 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

is a most promising field. There is said to be very 
few first class dredges in the Urals. 

The Russians have always nsed wasteful methods 
of mining. The war has called for a much greater 
supply, while the Russian revolution and the acts of 
the Bolsheviki have greatly reduced the output. The 
Russian peasants now have more troubles than ever 
before. There is little desire to work and the output 
of platinum is more reduced than ever. Moreover, 
if Germany continues to fasten her grip upon Rus- 
sia, as she was doing in 1918, she will cut off all this 
source of supply from the Allies. 

Our country is now desperately in need of plati- 
num and will be for many years. It is believed that 
aside from the large amount in the form of jewelry, 
a great part of which is in private ownership, there 
was on hand in our country in 1918 only one-fourth 
the usual amount of unmanufactured platinum. 
Patriotic people will refuse to buy jewelry contain- 
ing platinum while the war lasts. 



CHAPTER XXII 

NITROGEN FOR FERTILIZER AND 
MUNITIONS 

When the war opened there was much concern 
over the problem of securing nitrogen, especially in 
Germany. There is an abundance of nitrogen in the 
world, but it is difficult to obtain it. The atmosphere 
is made up of nitrogen to the extent of 80 percent, 
and there is much nitrogen in the soil. So, while 
there is plenty of nitrogen all about us, it is usually 
mixed with other elements and we have a difficult 
problem to separate it. 

Men and animals must have nitrogen in their food 
and they get it from the plant world. Plants in 
soil turn get it from the soil. After a number 
hunger of crops have grown on the same land the 
soil has yielded much of its nitrogen supply, and 
then the crops suffer. For a long time men did not 
understand why the crops on old land were so poor. 

About a hundred years ago a Scotchman living in 
Chile took some nitrate, which is a compound con- 
taining nitrogen, found in the desert there and 
sprinkled it over a part of his garden. To his 
amazement that part brought him a splendid growth, 
while the rest failed to yield a good crop. He did 
not understand the reason, so he sent some of the 
nitrate to Scotland, where it was analyzed. In this 
way the value of nitrogen as a plant food was 
discovered. 

Now farmers everywhere know that crops take 
nitrogen from the soil and it must be put back in 

133 



134 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

fertilizing the form of nitrate fertilizer or the 
profitable crops fail. It has been found, for ex- 
ample, that old wheat land that is yielding only 20 
bushels to the acre will grow 30 or more bushels 
if the soil is fertilized by spreading nitrate over it. 
Potato land can be improved with nitrate from 130 
bushels per acre to 200 bushels or more. 

Chile, which occupies a narrow strip along the 
western coast of South America, has what is called 
a natural monopoly of nitrate. This means that the 
nitrate deposits here are so much greater than that 
of any other country that everybody who needs 
nitrate imports it from Chile. 

The deposits occupy a belt of land about 500 miles 
long and 10 miles wide lying about 15 miles from the 
nitrate seacoast. This is a desert region and 
deposits there is very little rainfall to wash away 
the nitrate. The raw material called "caliche" is 
not hard to mine, because it is close to the surface 
of the earth. The deposit is from one to six feet 
thick and is in some places within a few inches of 
the surface. In other places there are layers of dust 
and rock some 25 feet thick over the deposits. 

The deposit contains not only nitrate, but other 
substances, such as salt, borax, and iodine. It is 
broken up by boring into it and exploding a charge 
of gunpowder. The broken pieces are then crushed 
and carried to great tanks, where boiling water is 
used to dissolve the nitrate and separate it from the 
other substances. 

Since there is no water in this desert region, they 
obtained water in early days by bringing salt water 
from the ocean and distilling it. Sometimes fresh 
water was brought in ships. Now these expensive 
methods have given place to pipe lines which bring 
fresh water from the distant Andes Mountains. 

After the boiling water has taken up as much 
nitrate as it can dissolve, it is drawn off into other 



NITROGEN FOR FERTILIZER AND MUNITIONS 135 

ready for tanks to be purified, and finally into 
market still other tanks, where a part of the 
water evaporates and the nitrate turns into crystals 
that look like rock salt. It is then shoveled from the 
tanks into cars and allowed to dry for several days. 
The pure nitrate is then packed in bags to protect 
it from the air, for it will absorb dampness very 
rapidly. It is now ready to be shipped to the ends 
of the earth, to .be exchanged for the articles of food 
and clothing that the Chileans cannot produce at 
home. 

Before the war all the nations of the world were 
importing nitrate in great quantities from Chile. 
Germany was using 600,000 tons of nitrate each 
year for her farms and it all came from this same 
source. 

The other use to which nitrate was put was the 
manufacture of nitric acid, which is one of the most 
Germany's powerful acids known to chemists. 
needs Nitric acid is widely used in manufac- 

turing, but it is especially necessary in making high 
explosives. It takes from 3 to 10 tons of nitric acid 
to make one ton of explosive. Before the war Ger- 
many was using 300,000 tons of nitrate each year 
in manufactures and in making munitions. After 
the war was under way Germany was using 400 tons 
of explosives every day. 

Knowing this, the Allies expected by cutting off 
Germany's nitrate supply from Chile to hinder her 
making of explosives. Germany had doubtless laid 
by a huge supply of nitrates for this struggle, but 
explosives are used on such a tremendous scale in 
this war that they thought her stores would not last 
long. Though Germany was counting on winning 
the war in a brief campaign, still she knew that her 
nitrate supply from Chile would be stopped by Eng- 
land's superior navy, so she set her scientists and 



136 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

engineers to the task of obtaining nitrogen from the 
air and built huge factories for the purpose. 

It has been known for years that powerful elec- 
tric currents would draw nitrogen from the air and 
nitrogen make it available for fertilizer and 
from air munitions. This is an expensive 
method, but it had been tried at Niagara Falls and 
in Norway, where cheap water power would fur- 
nish plenty of electricity. This method had not 
been much used before the war because of the 
abundance of cheap nitrate. But now Germany 
must have nitrogen no matter what the cost. It is 
said that German engineers spent a year and a half 
working day and night equipping the factories for 
big-scaled production. Millions of dollars were 
spent. In this way Germany has obtained ample 
and constant supplies both for fertilizers and for ex- 
plosives for as long as the war lasts, and has made 
herself independent of Chile and the rest of the 
world so far as nitrogen is concerned. 

The Allies, who have mastery over the sea, can 
get all the nitrate they wish from Chile, provided 
they have plenty of ships in which to transport it. 
The pirate use of the U-boat by Germany made the 
Allies tremble for their ships. So many had been 
sunk that ocean trade was greatly curtailed. The 
United States, fearing that ample supplies of nitrate 
could not be obtained from Chile, also set to the task 
of building plants to take nitrogen from the air. 



CHAPTER XXIII 
AMERICA'S POTASH FAMINE 

There are other elements that enter into the fer- 
tilizers that farmers use that are very important. 
geeman Without them the crops would soon fail 
potash * and the world would be short of food. 
Potassium is one of these. It is generally known 
by the name of potash. Before the war farmers all 
over the world were depending upon Germany for 
their supply of potash. As the German mine at 
Stassfurt in Saxony was supplying every nation, 
there was a chance that Germany might try to 
starve the world by refusing to let any of her potash 
go out. In fact, Germany had been boasting that 
through her control of the only known large deposit 
of potash salt, she would be able to say which nations 
should eat and which ones should starve. 

It was not long after the war started in 1914 until 
the potash supply of the^other nations of the world 
became exhausted. However, the American people 
have not yet starved, though we have faced a seri- 
ous situation. 

While potash is one of the most widely distributed 
of the elements, still every attempt that has been 
killing made for the last forty years to pro- 

competition duce it in commercial quantities from 
any of the natural deposits has been blocked, 
because Germany immediately offered great quan- 
tities of potash at prices that made it impossible to 
compete. In this way Germany ruined every com- 
pany that entered the potash field. 

The standard potash of commerce, or the German 

137 



138 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

product, used to cost the farmer around forty dol- 
lars a ton. Now he can buy only limited quantities 
of American potash and must pay from $350 to $500 
a ton. Thus it is evident that America has not yet 
solved the potash problem. 

The United States, in normal peace times, used an 
average of 250,000 tons of German potash annually 
ameeican and the demand has been steadily 

potash famine increasing. Had it not been for the 
war we would probably have used about 500,000 tons 
in 1918. In the first two years after the German 
embargo went into effect we had used up all the 
reserve stock there was on hand, together with a 
considerable quantity re-exported to us from South 
America and the price here climbed from $40 to 
$500 a ton. Throughout 1917 we had no potash in 
America except what we produced ourselves and this 
in very limited amounts and at great expense. 

Potash is usually found in combination with other 
minerals such as micas, felspar and green sand, and 
it is difficult to break down this combination so as 
to set the potash free. These combinations are al- 
ways breaking down naturally, but not rapidly 
enough in most sections to satisfy the demands of 
farming, so the farmer must supply quantities of 
free potash for his crops. 

The sandy soil of the Atlantic seaboard requires 
potash in larger quantities than nature provides. 
soil potash The citrus fruits of Florida ; the cot- 
hungey ton and tobacco of Georgia, the Caro- 

linas, and Virginia; the potatoes and garden truck 
of the eastern shore of Maryland and New Jersey 
cannot be grown in large quantities without potash. 

Already the Department of Agriculture is aware 
that the crops in these sections, where potash was 
formerly used freely, are showing signs of potash 
hunger, as farmers can get only a fraction of their 
normal supply. The crops of 1917 were smaller per 



AMERICA'S POTASH FAMINE 139 

acre and the plants were less vigorous than before. 
Texas needs no potash for its cotton ; Maine can still 
produce potatoes without it; but tobacco, on the 
other hand, wherever it is grown, absorbs potash as 
a sponge does water. 

Some of our potash supply now comes from the 
alkali lakes of western Nebraska and southern Cali- 
fornia. Some of it comes from Great Salt Lake; 
some is produced from the alunite deposits of south- 
ern Utah. A good deal is obtained from the kelp 
bed of the Pacific coast, and a rapidly increasing 
supply is coming from cement works and blast 
furnaces. 

Most of the potash, however, that we obtained in 
1918 came from the lakes of western Nebraska. 
Nebraska There are several of these scattered 

potash lakes throughout the sand hill region. 
They have for the most part neither inlets nor out- 
lets, but are merely depressions in the sand in which 
the surface water and the melting winter snows ac- 
cumulate to a depth of from six to eight feet. Some- 
times a silicate deposit will form a water-tight 
bottom in one of these lakes and there will accumu- 
late a layer of brine-soaked sand growing richer in 
mineral contents by evaporation with each passing 
summer. 

Extensive operations have been under way for the 
last two years to extract the 30 percent potash con- 
tained in these brines. The brine is sometimes 
pumped for several miles through pipe lines to evap- 
orating and kiln-drying plants. From Sevier Lake, 
alone, 16,000 tons of potash was recovered in 1916, a 
larger quantity in 1917 and the plant was then en- 
larged to a capacity of 4,000 tons of potash a month. 

Estimates on the life of these lakes vary from 
four to ten years. While they last and with their 
product selling at from $350 to $500 a ton their 
operation is very profitable. Without them the 



140 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

United States would have had very little potash 
indeed for the years 1917 and 1918. 

Probably the largest volume of concentrated 
potash salt in America is Searles Lake in southern 
searles California. Certainly it is the best adver- 
lake tised, but as yet it is not a very important 
factor in the actual production of potash. It is 
rather a dry bed of crystallized salt, hard enough 
to support a wagon and team and covering an area 
of about twelve miles with a depth of mineral de- 
posits estimated at seventy feet. 

The deposits here carry about two percent of 
potash and one and three-tenths percent borax. 
A long The cost of extraction is very high and the 
haul potash thus far shipped is said to carry so 
much borax as to make it less satisfactory for fer- 
tilizer purposes. Searles Lake as a permanent 
source of potash is handicapped because of the long 
freight haul, while the whole estimated supply of 
four million tons would satisfy the normal American 
demand for only a few years. 

There is also potash in Owens Lake in California, 
Summer Lake in Oregon and many other small 
similar deposits as well as Salt Lake in Utah. Their 
total potash reserve, however, is too small and it 
is too expensive to obtain it by the methods yet 
applied, for them to be regarded as important 
factors except during war emergencies. 

We are getting a fair amount of potash from the 
seaweed or kelp on the Pacific coast. About one- 
kelp eighth of our total supply in 1918 came from 
beds this giant seaweed. It flourishes in great 
masses all along the coast as far north as the Aleu- 
tian Islands and is extremely rich in potash. It grows 
close to shore, attaching itself to the rocks at the 
bottom of the sea and sending out long branches. 
Some of these branches are as much as two feet in 



AMERICA'S POTASH FAMINE 141 

diameter and a hundred or more feet long and they 
float on the surface. 

Surveying parties were sent out by the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture several years ago; and they 
reported that the supply was practically inexhaust- 
ible. But in our attempts to harvest kelp, it is 
proved that the density of the growth is very much 
less than had been believed and much of it grows 
so close to the dangerous rocky coast that it cannot 
be gathered. The method of harvesting kelp is in- 
genious. A submarine mowing-machine cuts the 
weed off about three feet below the surface, and it 
is gathered by boats. 

There are several concerns actively engaged in 
potash production on the coast and the Department 
drying of Agriculture has put into operation a 
kelp plant near Santa Barbara, California, where 
improved methods of drying the kelp and extracting 
the potash salt are to be tried and efforts made to 
produce profitable by-products. 

The fuel cost for drying out the ninety percent 
of water is so far very expensive. It would be pro- 
hibitive in peace time competition. Then there is 
the heavy freight rate from the Pacific coast. to the 
Atlantic seaboard. Nevertheless the idea of return- 
ing to the land potash that has been leached out of 
the earth and gathered by Nature's own device into 
seaweed appeals to us all. 

One idea is to try to transplant the seed of the 
kelp along the rocky coast of Maine, hoping that it 
may flourish there as it does on the Pacific and thus 
remove one of the most serious items of cost ; 
namely, the long freight haul. 

There are plenty of undeveloped potash resources 
everywhere, when we discover how to secure it. 
abundance Nearly half the earth 's crust is felspar 
of potash and nearly all felspar contains from 
five to ten percent of potash, but Germany has been 



142 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

selling the potash from the Stassfurt mines at such 
a reasonable rate that nobody until now has had 
courage to try to develop any new process because 
there was no profit in it. 

There are unlimited amounts of green sand along 
the south Atlantic coast from New Jersey south- 
ward, which is rich in potash. Whether this potash 
can be extracted at a reasonably low cost remains 
to be seen. A plant to handle two hundred tons of 
sand daily has been built. It is expected to produce 
each day about nine tons of potash. 

Near Marysvale, Utah, are deposits of alunite, a 
mineral containing potash in combination with 
utah alumina. From this, potash is being pro- 

alunite duced at a cost that yields a profit at 
present high prices. If the aluminum can be de- 
veloped as a by-product from this, so as to reduce 
the cost of potash, it may enable the latter to be 
produced at a reasonable price. 

There is still one other source of potash supply 
that is very promising. This is the recovery of 
new potash from cement kiln and blast fur- 

supplies naces. Cement works and blast furnaces 
are fairly distributed over the country, so that trans- 
portation cost will be low. There is promise that 
potash from these sources will be abundant for all 
time. It is too early to claim this has already 
proved satisfactory, but the evidence so far is all 
in its favor. Government experts have delved 
deeply into every phase of the potash question, and 
they think that this source offers the best chance 
to compete in price with German potash in normal 
times. 

The process of recovering the potash from the 
cement kiln and the blast furnace dust has been 
cottrell recently discovered and has some very 
process interesting facts. The inventor was 
looking for something else when he made the dis- 



AMERICA 'S POTASH FAMINE 143 

covery. The dust from the cement works spreads 
all about for miles, carried by the wind, and de- 
stroys or injures surrounding vegetation. The 
orange groves of Riverside, California, were being- 
ruined by cement dust. F. Gr. Cottrell undertook to 
find some way to protect the orange groves from 
destruction. He found that the way to prevent dust 
from spreading over the countryside was to pass 
the furnace fumes through a series of charged elec- 
tric wires, which accumulated the dust at the kiln. 
Then there was the problem of what to do with the 
great quantities of dust that was piled up at the kiln 
by this method. 

It has long been known to chemists that limestone, 
coke, iron ore and clay, which are the ingredients 
heated used in cement works, contain potash, 

cement dust but not in a form that can be easily 
separated. The dust was analyzed and it was found, 
as expected, that it contained a very high percentage 
of potash. But a new fact was also discovered ; that 
the potash had been changed by the heat of the kiln 
so that it was now readily soluble and could be 
recovered by simple processes. 

This method of extracting potash by means of 
electric methods is called the Cottrell process. It 
potash furnishes at once a solution of the 

by-product problem of dust disposition, which 
every manufacturer of Portland cement meets with, 
because laws have made it illegal to discharge dust 
from cement works to the air; and it also prevents 
the alkaline potash carried in the fumes from eating 
out of the lining of the flues. For this reason manu- 
facturers have for years been trying to use as small 
a proportion as possible of potash bearing in- 
gredients. Now those plants that have installed the 
Cottrell method find they can add substitutes here- 
tofore discarded and thereby obtain a most profit- 
able potash by-product ; and this potash, which is 



144 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

the important thing, can be produced at a very low 
cost. 

The first plant in the east to adopt the Cottrell 
method was one at Hagerstown, Maryland. On a 
production of three tons of potash a day the cost 
of Hagerstown is thirty-nine cents a unit. Before 
the war the same quantity of the same grade from 
Stassfurt sold for eighty-five cents. It is now 
selling for five dollars a unit in the open market. 

The cost of installing the Cottrell process is 
rather high, amounting to about $50,000 for a three 
thousand barrel plant. But as cement manufac- 
turers are forced to do something to control the 
dust, installations are being made all over the coun- 
try as fast as the necessary equipment can be ob- 
tained. The Eiverside plant has been in operation 
for about four years; that at Hagerstown about a 
year and a half. There are other plants that are 
now using a water spray to collect the dust, instead 
of electricity, and they are producing potash, too. 

The annual production of cement in the United 
States is about 90,000,000 barrels, and the average 
potash from amount of potash that can be ob- 
cement kiln tained would be about one and three- 
fourths pounds to each barrel of cement produced. 
Here, then, is a supply of 75,000 tons of potash a year 
on a basis that will compete with the German prod- 
uct on any sort of terms, and this potash is mainly 
produced in sections of the country where it is most 
needed, thus saving the transportation expense. 

The blast furnaces of the United States promise 
a vastly greater supply. They are awaiting only 
potash from the installation of electric devices. 

blast furnaces In this industry, as in the cement 
industry, the main question is one of the necessary 
equipment. From experiments that have been made, 
it is estimated that 500,000 tons a year can be pro- 
duced from the blast furnaces of our country at a 



AMERICA'S rOTASH FAMINE 145 

cost at least as low as that from the cement kiln. 
Large steel companies are now installing the first 
commercial potash plants. 

It now seems clear that sooner or later a very- 
large part of our supply of cheap potash will come 
from these wasted supplies from the blast fur- 
naces and the cement works of our country. It is 
believed that these sources of supply will in the end 
drive out the German product from our markets, 
and it will be one more justly deserved loss to Ger- 
many for starting this terrible war. 

There is little doubt that Germany has long re- 
garded the possession of the Stassfurt deposit as 
alsace one of her most valuable pieces on the 
deposits world chess-board. She hoped to pay a 
large part of the war cost by making the rest of the 
world buy her potash at tremendous prices after the 
war. But in this matter Germany was slightly over- 
confident. She did not foresee that certain events 
might defeat her game. 

It has been known only recently that potash de- 
posits discovered in Alsace in 1909 are even larger 
and more accessible than those in Stassfurt. These 
deposits are actually larger than the Stassfurt beds, 
according to information recently disclosed by the 
French. They contain about 1,500,000 tons of 
potash salt. Moreover, these salts are readily usable 
for fertilizer without having to be separated from 
magnesium salts, as is required from the Stassfurt 
deposits. 

These mines in Alsace are located near Wittel- 
sheim. They were first discovered when some deep 
alsace mines borings were made for coal in that 
restricted vicinity. The first production of 
potash from this deposit began in 1910, but, under 
German government regulation, the amount was 
carefully restricted. Fifteen mines were opened in 
Alsace, having a capacity of 800,000 tons a year, 



146 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

but they were allowed to sell only one-tenth of their 
total capacity. The German government reduced 
the production in order to keep control of the potash 
monopoly. 

The Allies hope that Alsace-Lorraine at the end 
of the war will be restored to France and these 
potash resources will not only break the German 
monopoly, but provide France with a valuable ex- 
port commodity to exchange for the vast supplies 
of all kinds that she must obtain from her Allies. 



CHAPTER XXIV 
SULPHUR IN WAR TIMES 

A country can fight only in proportion to the 
amount of sulphuric acid it can obtain. We must 
have sulphuric acid by thousands of tons or we could 
not supply our army with high explosives. Sul- 
phuric acid is also necessary in the manufacture of 
farm fertilizers, the supply of which had to be kept 
up if we were to feed the world while we win the 
war. 

Sulphur has been known from the earliest time 
because of its bright yellow color. It is known also 
importance because of the fact that it burns with a 
of sulphur blue flame and forms a pungent gas. 
It is a chemical element of great importance to 
man. Entering into the make-up of both vegetable 
and animal tissues, it is therefore essential to life 
itself. The small proportion required for the main- 
tenance of life is supplied in sufficient quantities 
by the soil ; but we need large quantities of sulphur 
in industry, and this supply can be met only by 
mining in those parts of the earth's crust in which 
large deposits of sulphur mineral are found. 

Without sulphur the manufacture of commercial 
rubber would cease and in turn the countless 
articles dependent upon the use of rubber would be 
destroyed. Without sulphur a great number of 
chemical industries would be crippled, involving the 
loss of hundreds of products used by man. Besides 
explosives, sulphur is needed in the making of 
paper, medicinal preparation, bleaches, dyes, insecti- 
cides and matches. With no sulphuric acid the 

147 



148 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

manufacture of certain farm fertilizers and many 
of the explosives, not mentioning a long list of other 
products, would be impossible. It is therefore an 
important duty of our government and of interest 
and concern to each one of our citizens to know the 
story of sulphur, where it is obtained and in what 
quantities it is needed. 

Gunpowder is a mixture of sulphur with some 
other substances, so that when, in the fourteenth 
century, gunpowder was invented, sulphur sprang 
forward as an important element in the world. It 
has held its place to the present day by virtue of 
the increasing use of gunpowder, its growing use in 
many other lines of commerce and business, as well 
as its employment in making sulphuric acid. 

The amount of sulphur used by the modern na- 
tions is small in comparison with the enormous 
tonnage of iron and coal demanded. Still sulphur is 
needed in so many different industries and in such 
a number of articles that we must have our own 
supply so we will not be dependent upon other 
countries. 

Sulphur appears in nature in three different 
forms: First, in a free or native condition known 
as crude sulphur; next, it occurs in a combination 
with one or more metals forming what are called 
sulphide minerals. 

Copper, iron, lead, zinc, silver, nickel, antimony, 
and mercury are all found combined with sulphur. 
Thus we have copper sulphide, lead sulphide and 
so on. 

Then there are the sulphates, a combination of 
sulphur with oxygen and certain metals. These as 
a class are less important to us industrially than 
the sulphides. The sulphates occur in bulk and are 
widespread. Two of them are gypsum and barite. 

From the sulphides we get practically all the sul- 
phuric acid now used in this country. We obtain 



SULPHUR IN WAR TIMES 149 

it as a by-product in the smelting of the ores of 
copper, lead, zinc, and silver, or by roasting the 
pyrite which before the war was largely imported 
from Spain. It came as ballast in returning ships. 
Because of the inroads of the U-boats and the 
needed shipping tonnage for war supplies to our 
armies and our Allies, this supply of pyrite was 
cut off, and our country had to turn to other sources 
for its large needs of sulphuric acid. 

We found that in an emergency crude sulphur can 
be used to manufacture sulphuric acid. Prior to 
Sicily's the year 1900 nearly all the world's 

sulphur mines supply of free or crude sulphur 
came from the huge deposits in the Island of Sicily, 
where cheap labor and large mines made a world 
monopoly. But the methods of mining the Sicilian 
fields were very wasteful, and the mining organiza- 
tions did not improve their methods. When com- 
petition came, the result was that the Sicilian mines 
lost the world trade. 

Sulphur deposits occur in many localities in the 
United States, including those that have been 
worked in a small way in Utah, Wyoming and other 
western states, but our domestic supply of sulphur 
now comes almost entirely from the Gulf Coast. 

The story of the discovery and development of 
these Gulf Coast sulphur mines is a very interesting 
city of one. At a place now called "Sulphur," 
sulphur a small town in Louisiana, a hole was put 
down in 1865 in search of petroleum. After they 
had gone through several hundred feet of quick- 
sand, they bored through a mass of pure sulphur 
100 feet in thickness. Nowhere else in the world 
is there known to be such abundance. 

Men immediately began to contrive a method of 
reaching this fine body of pure sulphur. During the 
following thirty years, numerous attempts were 
made to mine the sulphur by the ordinary mining 



150 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

shaft, as one would mine for coal. All the efforts 
resulted in hopeless failure. It was easy enough 
to put down an iron pipe a dozen inches in diameter, 
such as was used in oil wells, but quite a different 
problem to open a big shaft that would allow miners 
to reach the sulphur. 

At first the main difficulty was the terrible side 
pressure from the quicksand which was met part 
the enemy- way down. The sand pressed so hard 
quicksand upon the shaft that it gave way and 
caved in. Finally the engineers succeeded in put- 
ting down a shaft of extraordinary strength that 
withstood the pressure of the quicksand. But when 
the workmen went down to mine the sulphur, they 
met with a great inrush of poisonous gases from the 
sulphur deposits, which seemed to show that it was 
not possible for men to work in the bed of sulphur 
even if they could reach them. It was then evident 
that some other method of mining must be devised 
to meet these difficulties. 

Between 1891 and 1903 Herman Frasch solved 
the problem that today makes the United States in- 
frasch dependent so far as sulphur is concerned. 
process The plan is called the Frasch process and 
is simply this : A well is put down, to the sulphur 
deposits the same as when boring for petroleum 
and cased in with an iron pipe. This keeps out the 
water and quicksand. Within this well is put down 
another smaller pipe with a space left between ; and 
within this pipe still another, so that there are three 
pipes, one within the other, with spaces between. 

Through the outer or larger pipe they force down 
into the mines superheated steam, hot enough to 
melt the sulphur and turn it to liquid. Then 
through the inner of the three pipes compressed air 
is pumped to the bottom, and the force of the air 
upon the melted sulphur drives it up through the 



SULPHUR IN WAR TIMES 151 

medium pipe, that is through the middle space be- 
tween the outer and inner pipes. 

The sulphur cpmes up in a liquid state, and it is 
stored in great bins until it cools and becomes hard. 
It is then loaded on cars by means of great steam 
shovels. A number of wells are operated at the 
same time. When any one well ceases to flow satis- 
factorily it is abandoned and another well opened 
to take its place. The process, therefore, is to a 
very large degree mechanical, and it is wonderfully 
efficient. 

A second great sulphur deposit was later discov- 
ered at Bryan Heights, Texas, near the mouth of 
bryan height the Brazos River, forty miles south- 
mine west of Galveston. There is at this 

point also a good harbor which gives favorable 
shipping facilities. The productive portions of the 
mines here lie about one thousand feet beneath the 
surface, and it has been developed more recently 
than at Sulphur, Louisiana. We do not know how 
much comes from these two mines, but they are very 
large and will supply us for some time to come, 
though it seems best that the sulphur from them 
shall be used rather carefully at least while the war 
lasts. 

We do not know how extensive are the sulphur 
deposits along our Gulf Coast, but the probability 
gulf coast is that there are a number of deposits 
advantages like the two that are being worked. 
Geologists tell us that many similar areas exist. 
Some of these supply petroleum, others rock salt, 
and still others, sulphur. Sometimes all of these 
elements appear in the same place, but the mining 
operations are directed against only one of the 
three in any one place. 

One of the advantages of these sulphur mines in 
the Gulf coast region is that they are near the sea, 
so the product can be shipped at small cost for 



152 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

transportation. Another advantage is that they are 
near the oil fields where cheap fuel can be had. The 
two sulphur mines at Sulphur and Bryan Heights 
produce now over 98 percent of the entire country's 
output of sulphur. 

While we have in our western states numerous 
lean deposits of sulphur, they have as yet but little 
output. It is therefore certain that without the Gulf 
deposits and the ingenious method of making them 
available, this country would have scarcely been 
able to meet successfully the war needs of sulphur 
and sulphuric acid. 

The United States was one of Sicily's largest cus- 
tomers, but now we not only receive no sulphur from 
an American that source, but we have even en- 
monopoly tered the world market as a growing 
competitor. There are small imports coming to our 
Pacific coast from Japan, but these are not very 
important now that the Panama Canal affords cheap 
water transportation from our sulphur supplies on 
the Gulf Coast. The United States is practically 
independent of the rest of the world as regards its 
supply of sulphur. 



CHAPTER XXV 
EUROPE, ITS CLIMATE AND WATERWAYS 

Because our soldiers have been fighting in France, 
Belgium and Germany, in Italy, Russia and Siberia, 
we must get better acquainted with Europe. Its 
climate, its waterways and mountains, as well as its 
products and commerce, are of vital interest to us. 

The forces that build continents were kinder to 
Europe than any other of the great land divisions 
Europe a of the world. Europe is really a great 
peninsula peninsula thrown out from the land 
mass of Asia to bask in the mild climate of the Gulf 
Stream. The Baltic Sea on the north reaches hun- 
dreds of miles inland to the heart of Europe, carry- 
ing the mild influence of the Gulf Stream with it; 
while on the southern border the Mediterranean 
extends more than a thousand miles to the shores of 
Asia. The Black Sea extends the sea advantages 
3,500 miles eastward from Gibraltar. Branching 
off from these greater seas are numerous arms or 
smaller seas and gulfs, bringing the influence of the 
ocean to every section of the continent. 

Europe has a wonderful coast line. Africa and 
South America resemble solid blocks of land with- 
out the advantages of climate and commerce that 
inland seas would bring. Even the United States, 
with its favorable location and its splendid com- 
mercial routes and an area nearly equal to that of 
all Europe, has only 5,200 miles of sea coast, while 
Europe has 20,000 miles. 

Between these inland-reaching seas, lies the great 
land mass of Europe, a vast peninsula fringed with 

153 



154 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

a succession of smaller peninsulas, each having the 
immense advantages of a long coast line. Greece, 
Italy, Spain, Scandinavia and Denmark fall but 
little below so many islands in length of sea coast. 
France faces two seas, Russia three, while England 
is an island kingdom. 

This long coastline with the numerous peninsulas 
explains why there are so many different nations in 
Europe. The many different languages has in some 
ways hindered progress. 

Nearly all of Europe lies farther north than New 
York. Both New York and Chicago are farther 
Europe's south than Rome or Constantinople, yet 
climate Italy has a subtropical climate. All of 
Europe except the Mediterranean peninsulas lies 
farther north than Minneapolis, which is one of our 
coldest cities. London with its mild winters is on 
the same parallel as frigid Labrador. Both Ger- 
many and England are as far north as Canada. 

What accounts for the mild weather conditions of 
Europe? In the first place the mountain systems of 
Europe run east and west. There are in Europe no 
plateaus surrounded by mountains. The whole con- 
tinent lies open to the warm, moist westerly winds 
blowing from the Atlantic. The climate of Europe 
is much milder than that part of North America 
which lies in the same latitude, because so much of 
it lies near the ocean or its branches. These ocean 
waters are warm and the winds which blow from the 
west are warmed by passing over them. Thus they 
carry the heat and moisture far inland over Europe. 

There are three climatic regions of Europe. The 
Mediterranean countries have a mild climate with 
winter rains. The Alps and Pyrenees keep out 
cooler winds from the north. Our soldiers in Italy 
will therefore not have to face severe weather unless 
they are sent to fight among the Alps. 

The west European region of England, France, 



EUKOPE, ITS CLIMATE AND WATERWAYS 155 

Belgium and Germany is never very hot nor very 
cold, but is usually very moist, with the heaviest 
rainfall in the winter. One of our aviators writes 
that he got lost in a rain cloud two miles deep and 
thinking he was over France descended and was 
peppered with shrapnel by the Germans, but es- 
caped. Our soldiers in the trenches must endure 
this wet climate, which is very trying in winter. The 
mild climate and abundant rainfall, together with a 
fertile soil make western Europe very productive. 

The east European region, comprising chiefly 
Eussia, is marked by greater extremes of heat and 
cold, because it is farther from the sea. It was king 
winter that really defeated Napoleon in his attempt 
to conquer Russia. Russia's north coast reaches 
into frigid latitudes, but the mild Gulf Stream 
bathes its shores and keeps away the severest 
extreme. The seaport of Archangel, however, 
freezes up in the winter. But since the war began, 
Russia, with the help of American engineers, built 
a new railroad reaching farther north to the shores 
of the Arctic at Alexandrovsk, which, while farther 
north than Archangel, receives the direct aid of the 
Gulf Stream and thus its port is open the year 
round. It was here on the Murman coast that the 
Allied soldiers, including our "Yanks," landed in 
the summer of 1918 and pushed southward along 
the railroad to aid the benighted Russians. 

How different America would be, both as to cli- 
mate and history, if the Appalachian and Rockies 
ran east and west across the continent. The trend 
of the Alps divides Europe into climatic belts with 
sharply different products. This difference in crops 
north and south of the Alps encourages the exchange 
of goods and stimulates commerce. 

It is well known that the sea is the cheapest of all 
highways, for there is no cost for upkeep as there is 
for railroads, no up-stream pull as in rivers, and the 



156 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAE 

ocean steamer can strike off in any direction. 
Irregular coast lines with their gulfs and bays with 
numerous rivers and canals make short and easy 
communication between the interior and the sea. 
The only comparison to Europe's sea routes would 
be the American Great Lakes if they were accessible 
and navigable at all seasons by ocean vessels, but 
commerce on them is limited to a part of the year 
and large ocean vessels cannot enter even in the 
summer. 

The commerce lines of Europe are interesting. 
Two great traffic trunk routes are furnished by the 
commerce southern and northern seas — one route 
by water skirts southern Europe to the Black 
Sea, and the other reaches into northern Europe to 
the Gulfs of Finland and Bothnia. There are sec- 
ondary heavy traffic routes also which are feeders 
to the main water routes. The feeders are the 
navigable bays and rivers and the railroads,' which, 
like the rivers, run in most cases direct to the sea, 
carrying inland products down to the ocean ports, 
and taking back goods from abroad. 

Along the southern route from Gibraltar to Con- 
stantinople there are»but few navigable rivers to act 
as feeders. The mountain wall of the Alps shuts 
the Mediterranean away from the waters of the 
back country, but the low shores of the Black Sea 
permit that body of water to drain much more than 
its proportional share of Europe. 

The Danube drains the very center of Europe and 
is navigable throughout most of its length. In 
the recent years it has been made an inter- 

danube national highway. A canal has been cut 
through the swampy delta of its mouth so the ship- 
ping may avoid the dangers of the multitude of the 
broad and shallow mouths. Ocean-going steamers 
ascend to the Roumanian ports of Braila and Galatz 
— there to take the grain cargoes that have come 



EUROPE, ITS CLIMATE AND WATERWAYS 157 

down in barges through the Iron Gate from the 
plains of Hungary. This explains the wish of the 
Central Powers to control the Danube to its mouth. 

Much of this down-stream traffic on the Danube is 
destined for the lower Rhine valley. It might save 
thousands of miles by moving directly up the Dan- 
ube and overland or through shallow canals, but the 
cost of railroad or even small barge transportation 
is too great in comparison with the river-sea route, 
even though the latter is many times longer. Thus 
much commerce passes down the Danube where 
ocean steamers bear it through the Black Sea, the 
Dardanelles, the Mediterranean and up the coast to 
the Rhine valley. 

The Black Sea traffic is further enriched by the 
steamers on the Dniester, Dnieper and the Don 
Russia's rivers and by the South Russian railways 
outlet which help to assemble the Russian wheat 
and corn at Black Sea ports for water transporta- 
tion to the outer world. Here we get the basis for 
Russia's long ambition to control the Dardanelles. 
This war has shown her fear of being cut off from 
the world by war, a well founded one. Russia ought 
to have a free outlet through the Dardanelles and 
will doubtless get it at the close of the war. 

The great Northern Sea route penetrates as far 
as Petrograd. This route is favored by being fed 
the Baltic by navigable rivers, among which are 
route the Rhine and Elbe, which must be 

classed as of the first magnitude, if measured by the 
commerce that they carry. The Elbe carries down 
to Hamburg products of central Germany and of 
Bohemia. The Rhine has, with great labor and ex- 
pense, been made and kept navigable from the dikes 
of Holland to the waterfalls of Switzerland. The 
Rhine valley is the greatest industrial region on the 
continent and has the most efficient and extensive 



158 SIDE LIGHTS ON THE WAR 

river transportation in addition to the busy rail- 
roads that run parallel to the river. 

This region of northwestern Europe has the most 
fully developed transport system in the world, all 
of which is due in large measure to its many ave- 
nues to the sea on account of its gently sloping sur- 
face and easy drainage. It is by ship that the heavy 
freight of Europe is carried. All freight traffic in 
which economy of cost is more important than 
economy of time, goes by water. Canals are numer- 
ous in the leading countries of Europe and very 
useful. They are not so economical as ocean car- 
riage, but afford cheaper transportation than rail- 
roads. We read much of the canals of France 
where the armies are fighting. . 

The efficiency of Europe's water routes and the 
important part they perform in her commerce is 
shown by the comparatively small railway mileage. 
Europe has 20,000 miles less railway than the United 
States, although the area is slightly larger and the 
population four times as great. Railways are not 
so necessary where there is such a wealth of water- 
ways so well utilized. 

America may justly boast of her great railway 
mileage. It is a wonderful achievement in spite of 
Europe's great continental handicaps. It is pos- 
railways sible that by mechanical improvements, 
unity, and system of arrangement, America may get 
as efficient service as Europe, but we must utilize 
our water possibilities first. The many independent 
states of Europe form a bar to such a thorough 
organization of railway traffic as exists in the United 
States where uniform regulations exist over a wide 
area enabling railroads to perform wonders in over- 
land transportation that have not been duplicated 
elsewhere. But again, if we are to compete with 
Europe we must have cheap transportation and so 
need to utilize our rivers and to construct canals. 






EUROPE, ITS CLIMATE AND WATERWAYS 159 

Europe's wonderful advantages in climate, pro- 
ductions and commerce have thus far failed to bring 
the common people the freedom and comfort that 
most countries of America and the British Empire 
possess. This is due to the fact that the common 
people of Europe in the main have not been edu- 
cated. They have not the opportunities or benefits 
of a public school system like ours, where the poor 
child has equal advantages with the well-to-do. The 
common people of Europe have largely been held 
down by the ruling classes and been kept ignorant. 
This is what ails poor Russia. The war will doubt- 
less bring new hopes to them. The first great need 
is for free education, which forms the basis for self 
government. 



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